There's No Such Thing As Monsters
by Menthol Pixie
Summary: Sam is definitely not schizophrenic. So why is everyone telling him that he is?
1. Chapter 1

**There's No Such Thing as Monsters**

**A/N: Set in season two between 'What Is and What Should Never Be' and 'All Hell Breaks Loose'. Some swearing.**

**I've been working on this all hiatus and I feel like I should have a ramble about it. I've had this idea in my head for something ridiculous, like a year or longer, and I finally worked in out in my head enough to start putting it down on paper. It may get confusing, but hopefully not crazily so. I'm still doing edits and stuff, but I'm hoping to post a chapter a week. I'm really looking forward to hearing what everyone thinks about this. It's probably the plottiest (is that a word?) thing I've ever written, and it's a little outside my comfort zone, so I really hope you all enjoy.**

**Chapter One**

Sam often found himself waking up in places other than where he went to sleep. A nap in the Impala saw towns roll by without notice. A knock on the head during a hunt switched the scenery from graveyard to motel room in a blink of the eye. Sometimes there was a hospital and no recollection of where he'd been before or what could have landed him there.

Fact was, half the time Sam wasn't entirely sure where he was to start with. Towns melted into other towns, diners had the same names and the motel rooms all looked alike. But there was always one constant.

Dean's hand on his shoulder would shake him awake when they stopped for food or gas or, if Dean was in _that_ mood, it would be a sudden eardrum-bursting blare of Metallica that jerked him upright. Dean's voice would lure him back to consciousness in familiar-but-not motels. Dean's humming would quell the panic of waking to white walls and beeping machinery, and Dean, who had an unexpected and seemingly genius talent for such a thing, would fill him in on where they were and where they'd been last week, or last month or last year...

Sam had tested him once, naming random dates, checking the details in Dad's journal, while Dean sat on the edge of his bed, tossing M&Ms into the air and catching them in his mouth, between rattling off the names of half a dozen towns they had been through over the years; Werewolf in Barlow, Kentucky, August '97, Black Dog in Gifford, South Carolina, December '95, Poltergiest in Alpine, Utah, May '03. Sam stopped his quizzing when Dean's recollections turned into lewd stories of his conquests in each place.

Thing was, trouble was always just around the corner when Sam woke up without Dean. The occasional breakfast run or shower or 'overnight stay' at some girl's apartment aside, Sam could always be sure that he'd wake up to Dean's even breathing in the bed across the room, or Dean at his side jolting him from a nightmare, or Dean sneaking early morning porn on the laptop under the pretense of searching for a hunt, or Dean watching cartoons on TVs with bad reception, or... well, just Dean. Sam would always wake up to Dean.

So Sam knew that something was wrong before he even opened his eyes.

The first thing that pinged his hunter's senses was the silence, like being in a soundproofed room. The motels they stayed in were usually just off the highway, which meant there was a constant stream of traffic; cars honking or screeching in ways that made Dean mutter about fixing brake pads or checking the suspension or – whatever, Sam didn't really listen when Dean talked cars. Trucks large enough to rattle the windows lumbered past at all hours, along with the occasional wailing ambulance or police car, the latter of which always making the two of them fall silent and tense until the squeal faded into the distance.

The walls were always thin enough that couples arguing in the next room or... uh, the opposite of arguing, could be heard loud and clear, forcing Sam to pull his pillow over his head to block out the noise of both the rowdy couple and Dean's seemingly mandatory commentary that accompanied it.

Where ever Sam was now, it was quiet. _Too quiet_, he thought automatically, quirking a tiny smile.

There was another thing. If things were as wrong as Sam was starting to think they were, no way should he be cracking mental jokes or smiling to himself, and his thoughts kept going off on tangents, that was wrong too. The more he thought about it, the more he began to realize that he was feeling really... strange. Like, disconnected or kind of floaty or...

Or drugged.

Sam snapped his eyes open, or tried to. It was more like a complicated ungluing process. Wrong. This was very wrong.

This bed was not the bed he remembered lying down in. This room was definitely not the room he remembered going to sleep in, and Dean definitely wasn't here.

Sam sat up, struggling through a wave of vertigo. Thin blankets pooled at his waist and... and these weren't the clothes he went to sleep in either. These weren't even his clothes. They were light blue drawstring pants with a matching t-shirt, kind of like hospital scrubs. Kind of like what Dean had been dressed in after the crash –_ don't go there._

Damn it, why couldn't he think straight? His thoughts kept slipping around like oil, holding onto one was an effort in near futility.

Think, think... okay, the clothes weren't important. He needed to figure out where he was and where Dean was and why he wasn't here and where the hell was here anyway? This tiny room with nothing more than a bed, a desk with matching chair and a set of drawers.

Had he been captured by... something? What had they been hunting? God, he couldn't remember. It seemed like an odd place to keep a prisoner. Not as many ropes as he was used to and where was the cliché dark dingy cellar or cave that monsters, and B-rate horror movie producers, were so fond of?

The doorknob twisted. Sam lurched back on the bed, his thoughts shattering and scurrying away in a dozen different directions. _Danger _was the only message left, coming though loud and clear. Frantically, he looked around the room, pushing the dizziness and subsequent nausea away as he searched for something, anything, that could be used as a weapon against whatever was about to come through that door.

There was nothing. The door opened.

"Good morning. How are you feeling today?"

Sam stared, still pressed against the wall, at the woman standing in the doorway. She held a clipboard and was dressed similar to him, although her scrubs were a light purple colour. Behind her, partially obscured by her rounded hips, was a trolley with about two dozen small paper cups sitting atop it. There was a pen tucked behind her ear, almost obscured by dark red hair that was falling loose from her pony-tail.

"Who are you?" Sam managed, forcing himself to relax slightly, to not press quite so hard against the wall (because no matter what this was, the wall wasn't going to protect him). He stayed alert though. There were plenty of monsters that could conceal their true form.

The woman, if that's what she was, frowned slightly. She was chubby in an attractive sort of way, soft. "I'm Kelly, remember? I took over as your primary care nurse after Trudy went on maternity leave last month."

Kelly, Trudy, maternity leave. It wasn't making sense. Sam couldn't make the pieces add up and that was something he knew he was usually good at, something that made Dean ruffle his hair, half obnoxious, half affectionate, or bump his shoulder and call him 'geek' or 'college boy'. He wanted Dean.

"Where am I?"

Kelly's frown became more pronounced. She pulled the clipboard away from her chest and looked over whatever was written on it.

"It says here that you took your medication last night. Did you tongue it? You know you need it, Sweetie. Here." She turned around and picked up a small plastic cup from the trolley. "Take these. I promise you'll feel much better."

Sam eyed the cup warily. "What are they?"

"Just your meds, Sweetie. Nothing to worry about." The frown was gone, replaced with false cheer as Kelly smiled encouragingly, if a little plastic.

Sam looked from her to the cup. "What are they for?" he asked slowly. Get information. Figure this out. He could do it. A headache was building up behind his eyes.

Kelly's smile became even more strained. "Your schitzophrenia, of course," she said sweetly.

Sam jerked. "I'm in a nuthouse?"

The smile dropped and the frown looked a lot more truthful than her cheer. "It's a Psychiatric Ward, Honey. You're here to get well."

She held out the cup expectantly. Sam heard the faint rattle of pills bumping against each other.

"I'm not taking those. There's been... something's wrong." It had to be some sort of... weird dream or hallucination. A supernaturally induced trip or something. "I'm not supposed to be here."

"Honey, if you don't take your medication I'll have to tell your doctor. It could lead to a loss of privileges."

She said it as if losing privileges was a terrible fate. Sam said nothing. What could he say?

Kelly sighed, lowering the cup. "Alright then."

She turned to leave, placed the cup amongst the others on the trolley.

"Wait," Sam said. He had to ask. He didn't hold out much hope that Kelly would know. He wasn't entirely sure that she was real, but if there was a chance... "Where's my brother?"

Kelly looked bemused as she stepped out the door, nudging the trolley aside with her plump hip. "I wasn't aware that you had a brother. Maybe he'll come during visiting hours."

Sam wilted. It still didn't make sense, and wasn't really all that comforting, but at least she hadn't said that Dean was dead or missing or maybe just didn't exist in this... alternate reality or parallel universe or whatever it was.

"Anything else?" Kelly asked, her hand hovering over his pill cup as though he might have changed his mind.

Sam shook his head mutely and Kelly carried on her rounds.

XXX

It was a fairly small mental health facility, Sam noted as he explored his new surroundings. According to the notice that was posted next to the nurses station, visiting hours weren't until 4PM so he had a lot of time to investigate and try to come to some sort of conclusion. He'd just have to hope that Dean would figure out where he was and come when he could.

He started with the basics, memorizing the layout and searching for clues. Whatever this was, there was always something that gave the game away.

It all looked very normal, however. There was a section for the men and another for the women, both shooting off from opposite ends of the main room, which was a recreation area of sorts. It was filled with round tables and chairs. Sam counted five sets. There was a small TV in the far right corner, almost as ancient as the ones found in his and Dean's motel rooms, with two armchairs and a couch surrounding it, and some shelves against the left wall that held jigsaw puzzles and art supplies, along with a few battered-looking boardgames.

There was a ranchslider along the far wall, next to the TV area. Through the glass doors Sam could see an elderly man with white hair and a younger woman, both clutching cigarettes in a small paved outdoor area.

The nurses station was centered on the wall behind Sam, which followed on to the single room. There were ten rooms for the males (he'd counted them when he left his room), and he assumed it was the same for the females. The whole thing was shaped like a capital T, presumably shooting off from the rest of the hospital.

Next to the nurses station was a door, complete with a slot indicating that it could only be opened with a key card, the same as the door to the room he'd woken up in. It looked to be the only exit from the ward.

Okay, so step one: _pray_ that Dean would turn up at visiting hours.

Step two: acquire one of those key cards.

For now though, all Sam could do was watch and try to learn the scheduals of the nurses. Things would be much easier to figure out once he'd found a way out and had Dean by his side.

"Hi, Sam."

Sam jumped, turning by reflex to seek out the person whom the voice belonged to.

A girl around his age, maybe a bit younger, was seated at the table closest to him. A dozen sheets of paper were spread out before her and her eyes didn't seem to have left the sheet she was currently working on.

He slid down into the seat across from her, eyeing her picture doubtfully. It didn't look like it was supposed to be anything, just smears of red on top of black lines. "How do you know my name?"

"I know everyone's names," she said, black crayon sweeping the page. She shook dark hair out of her face.

"But how do you know _my_ name?" Sam leant in closer, inspecting the girl intently but he didn't recognize her, didn't think he'd ever seen her before. "I don't know you. I don't even know how I got here."

"I don't know how you got here either," the girl said on a sigh, sounding rather resigned, "But you're in my head, like all the others."

Sam sighed to himself, sitting back. Right, try to get information from mental health patients. Great plan. "But I don't know you," he insisted. Maybe if he could just figure out how she knew his name...

The girl huffed an irritated breath, "I'm Rosalie, okay? But you know that. You must know that if you're in my head."

Okay, so maybe he shouldn't expect any breakthroughs from this girl. He wasn't sure how to reply to her assumption that he was in her head but Rosalie didn't seem to expect an answer, still focused on her drawing, which, Sam leant forward again to get a better look, seemed to be taking on a horrific twist, the black lines forming limbs, the red splashed over the page like blood.

Right then.

Sam pulled his gaze away from the picture and the top of Rosalie's head. He swiveled in his seat, taking in the rest of the room's occupants.

Everyone was dressed in the same light blue scrubs, apart from the two nurses at the desk, one of them Kelly, who were in purple and two... orderlies? Male nurses? Guards? Whatever, they were big and wore white, stationed next to each other near the TV area, watching the room in general.

A middle-aged man in a bathrobe with no cord sat playing Connect Four with a younger overweight man with dark curly hair a few tables away. There was a painfully thin teenage girl draped over one of the armchairs, twirling her lank hair with a finger as she gazed listlessly at the TV, and an older woman, hair streaked with gray, sitting by herself, doing nothing, as far as Sam could tell. Just staring into space.

The outdoor area was surrounded by a concrete fence, high, but he thought he could probably get over it... except that there was another white-clothed man standing out there observing the smokers.

Alright, so... think. This was the part where Dean would be telling him to 'get his geek on'.

Some of the haze was starting to lift, whatever he'd been drugged with was wearing off. Vague memories were stirring just below the surface. He and Dean had been hunting what they'd figured was a... werewolf? Yes, werewolf, so... so werewolves had nothing to do with psychiatric hospitals. Werewolves, when they turned, were basically animals. They didn't cast spells or create fake realities, they simply hunted and killed, thirsty for blood with none of their human qualities.

Madison was somewhere on the edge of his thoughts and Sam was grateful for the lingering effects of... whatever, that kept her there. He didn't want to think about her, he wanted to figure this out.

Sam turned back to Rosalie, more for the distraction than anything else. "What's the name of this hospital?" he asked.

"Saint Margarets," she answered without raising her head, shuffling her papers so that she had a blank sheet on top.

Saint Margarets. He'd been here. Not _here,_ in the psychiatric ward but definitely in the hospital. Through his murky memory he could just make out the image of the Impala pulling up outside the entrance, him and Dean pretending to be... Animal Control? There was a man, a survivor, a broken ankle and some claw marks, and a lucky escape.

Maybe... maybe the man had something to do with this. Hank Something or Something Hank. He was... a builder? Construction worker? Architect? But anyone could be into witchcraft. It wasn't all black cloaks and warts. Sometimes it was just a person with a grudge and the right book.

Sam tried to think but the drugs were withholding any details and his headache was flaring up again. He folded his arms on the table and rested his head on them dispondently.

He really hoped Dean had figured this out already.

XXX

Sam was so deep in thought when Dean arrived that he didn't even notice him come in.

Rosalie had disappeared off somewhere, leaving Sam with the table to himself. He was making notes with a felt pen, because apparently the unit didn't keep simple pencils or biro pens, writing down anything he could think of that might be related, which admittedly wasn't much, when Dean dropped himself down in the seat Rosalie had vacated.

"Dean." Sam jumped slightly, "Thank God." He dropped the pen and leant across the table in some sort of vague attempt at privacy. "Please tell me you've figured this out 'cause I'm kind of drawing a blank here."

"That right, Sammy?" Dean said neutrally. He looked tired, Sam realised. His whole demeanor drooped with weariness. Maybe Dean hadn't found anything either.

"Well, there's only so much information I can get without an internet connection and access to our books and stuff. What have you been doing?"

Dean ran a hand over his face. "I've been working," he said, as though that should be obvious, which Sam supposed it kind of was. He was just kind of hoping that Dean would have more than that.

"So this is the same hospital, right?" Sam went on when Dean didn't seem to have anything to add. "The one we were in yesterday, with the guy from the werewolf attack. Maybe it's not a werewolf? 'Cause I can't see how that would have caused this. Or the guy, maybe he's into witchcraft or something. Do you think... Dean?"

Sam trailed off as Dean propped his elbows up on the table, covering his face with both hands.

"Dean?" Oh God, maybe Dean _had _figured something out, something bad, because what else could make him act like this?

Dean drew in a deep breath and blew it out slowly, moving his hands away. He fixed Sam with a level stare.

"So the nurse say you haven't been taking your medication. Again."

Sam physically recoiled, pulled back as though he'd been slapped, sucking in a gasp. "What?"

"Damn it, Sam." The weariness took on an edge of frustration. "You know how much it upsets Mum when you do this."

"Mum?" Sam echoed faintly, but Dean just kept going and Sam had the feeling that he was already several pages behind.

"And Dad... seriously, Sam, and you wonder why he barely comes to see you? He can't handle sitting here listening to you spout out this shit. It's not..." Dean blew out another frustrated breath, scrubbing a hand against the back of his neck. He acted like Dean, so totally like Dean. Everything was spot on, minus the leather jacket, but it couldn't... it couldn't be Dean.

"I know it's not your fault," Dean said, his voice calmer but Sam could see the tension rolling through him. "You're sick and I get that, okay? I do. I'm trying to understand, I really am. But you need to take your pills, Sammy. You're supposed to be getting help here. You're meant to be getting better."

Sam shook his head vigorously, eyes wide. He had the feeling that he looked kind of crazed, which probably wasn't helping his case, but this wasn't... Dean couldn't be saying...

"No. No, Dean, you don't understand, Something's_ wrong_. It's, like, a spell or a curse or, or... I don't know, but this isn't right! Last night we were in a motel room. The werewolf, remember? And we came to this hospital to interview that man..."

Dean was staring at him, a mix of pity, confusion and frustration warring for dominance over his expression.

Sam clenched his fists, fighting hard to stop himself from banging them down on the table top. "Tell me you remember that!"

Dean looked away, swallowing, and rubbed a hand over his eyes, before turning back. He shook his head. "You've been here for almost six months. There's no curse and no motel rooms. There's no werewolf."

"Dean..."

Dean reached out, lightly resting his hand over Sam's, and waited until Sam looked from his hand to his face, eyes almost damp in his sincerity. "Sam, there's no such thing as monsters."

**To Be Continued...**


	2. Chapter 2

**There's No Such Thing As Monsters**

**A/N: So my wee daughter decided to have a long sleep and my son's enthralled with watching Superdog (cute show) so I managed to get this typed up way faster than I thought possible. I make no promises that future updates will be this fast (though I'll try). This chapter probably makes things even more confusing.**

**A note; in any story of mine that mentions 'magick', I'm intentionally spelling it with a 'k' to differentiate between 'magic' as in tricks that magicians do and 'magick' as in actual witchcrafty type magick. Also, I know that American's say 'Mom' rather than 'Mum' but my fingers are trained to type 'Mum' so that's what I'm going with (not an issue in this chapter but will come up later).**

**Enjoy! **

**Chapter Two**

"Sam won't wake up."

"... Dean?" Bobby's sleepy voice queried.

Dean paused in his pacing to glare at the phone, throwing an anxious glance at his brother's still form on the bed. "Of course it's me," he growled, "Listen, Bobby, _Sam won't wake up_."

"Well, damn it, boy, take him to a hospital. What'd you go up against?"

Over the phone Dean heard the faint rustling of blankets being thrown off. He sunk down on his bed, running a nervous hand through his hair. "We didn't go up against anything. We've been tracking a werewolf but it's all just research. We haven't tried to gank it yet. We haven't even figured out who it is."

"What about before that?" Bobby asked, sounding a little more alert now.

"We've been here a week, Bobby. Sam hasn't hit his head or been thrown around by anything. He was fine yesterday. His breathing's fine, his pulse is normal, everything. Except he's currently playing Sleeping Beauty and I don't think a kiss is going to solve this."

"Have you tried?"

Dean pulled the phone away from his ear and looked at it incredulously before bringing it back. "What? Bobby, no, come on. I need help here."

"Sorry, sorry. You try being helpful when some idjit's dragged you out of bed at four in of the morning."

"Four in the..." Dean glanced out the window. "Sorry, Bobby, it's not that early here. I didn't think..."

"Can it, Dean. It's not like I ain't used to it. I'm up now and your brother's in trouble so lets try to figure this out."

"Right." Dean blew out a long breath, struggling to make the switch from big brother to hunter.

"So he was fine yesterday? What were you doing?"

Dean scrubbed at his face. _Act like a hunter. Come on, Dean, you can do it, just think smart, look for clues, put the pieces together._ It would be easier if Sam wasn't still and silent on the bed, screaming for attention.

God, when Dean thought about earlier, coming back from his breakfast run to find Sam still asleep, which was unusual in itself because Sam was usually up first. Slapping the sole of Sam's foot with a 'Rise and shine, Sammy' and not getting any rising or shining. For a second he'd thought Sam was -

"Dean!"

"Huh? Oh." Dean snapped out of his memories with a shake of his head. "Yeah, like I said, we've been tracking a werewolf so we were looking through the victim reports, trying to find a link between them."

"Did you find it?"

"No. Bobby," Dean stood again. This level of frustration (not panic, no, just frustration) required pacing, and he couldn't concentrate while focusing on the rise and fall of Sam's chest, inches from some sort of (totally manly) breakdown every time it seemed like there was too long a gap between the two. "The werewolf's not important. It can't just magick someone into a coma."

"Well, you haven't found anything out yet, have you?" came Bobby's crotchety response. If anyone else had spoken to Dean like that right now he probably would have slammed the phone down, but this was Bobby and even when someone else would have been grating on Dean's nerves, Bobby's voice managed to calm him down, just a little.

"Look, we start from the beginning and work from there. You know this, Dean, get your head on straight."

Dean blew out a breath. "Okay, okay."

There was a pause as if Bobby wanted to say something, maybe something more personal, but then he cleared his throat and got back to business, which Dean was grateful for. He didn't need reassurances, he needed answers.

"So you were looking at victim reports..." Bobby prompted.

"Yeah, and we couldn't find anything." Dean took a swig from the half-forgotten coffee he'd picked up before he'd realised that Sam sleeping in was something far more sinister than it appeared, grimacing at the cold, bitter taste.

The coffee he'd gotten for Sam sat alone and untouched on the night stand, where he'd placed it before trying to shake Sam awake.

"But there was this guy in the hospital, animal attack apparently, so we went in to see what he had to say."

"And?"

"And nothing." Dean dropped his cup back down on the table. "I mean, I'm certain it's a werewolf behind the attacks. The MO's spot on, missing hearts, lunar cycle's right. Guy got away by locking himself in his basement, but that doesn't explain Sam."

"What about the guy you saw in the hospital? He seem dodgy at all?"

"If you're thinking witchcraft, I doubt it." Dean looked at Sam's coffee. He needed more caffeine for this. Maybe if he nuked it in the motel room's crappy microwave it wouldn't taste too much like ass, even though Sam took a million spoonfuls of sugar and a gallon of milk while Dean had his black. "The guy's an architect, got a wife, three kids. He even does volunteer work."

"Takes all sorts," Bobby reminded him.

"Yeah, but this guy checks out. Sam and I looked into him, trying to find a connection between the vic's. He's never been involved in anything remotely suspicious. The worst he's got on his record is a few parking tickets."

"Might just mean he's good at covering his tracks, but lets move on. Have you checked for hex bags?"

Hex bags. Dean could have kicked himself (_Great work, Dean, call Bobby in a panic before exploring the obvious possibilities. And you call yourself a hunter_). "Oh, uh... no. I'll call you back."

He swore he could actually _hear_ Bobby rolling his eyes, but, thankfully, all the older man said was, "Just keep me posted, kid."

Dean tossed the phone towards the table, not caring when it skittered across the surface and over the edge to the floor. He looked around the room, cataloguing everything he would have to search through, before his gaze, like a compass finding North, found it's way back to Sam's sleeping form.

Damn, but it was so _unnatural_ to see Sammy so still. Sammy's _don't_ stay still.

"You been pissing off witches, Sammy?" he murmured worriedly, before he shook his head and set about his task.

Logically, seeing as Sam was the only one affected, the hex bag should be in his stuff or on his person. If there was a hex bag. Dean kind of hoped there was because at least he'd know what he was dealing with, and it usually only took a bit of fire before _poof_, bag gone, hex broken, wakey wakey time for sleeping Sammy.

Okay, first things first. Sam's duffel bag was promptly upended on the floor.

"Alright, Sam, if you want to stop me from going through your personal belongings, it's time to speak up." Dean glanced up from the pile of clothes, but Sam's eyes stayed closed, breathing deep and even.

It was an unspoken rule – occasionally spoken with force actually – that they never went through each other's bags. There was very little privacy involved in the life they led. They were always together in the car or a diner or a motel. They shared the same hairbrush and the same shampoo and the same razor, sometimes the same toothbrush, although Sam bitched about that (hey, it wasn't Dean's fault that toothbrushes were great at getting muck out of hard to reach places on the Impala. They swapped clothes when laundry duty had been neglected, and ate together, went to bars together and talked and argued together and son of a bitch, when exactly had they started acting like an old married couple?

Moving on.

Point was, their duffel bags were off limits and Dean couldn't help but feel disappointed when Sam didn't jump up and pull a bitch face, demanding to know what the hell Dean thought he was doing going through his stuff.

Dean sighed.

"Think there's any chance that you're just really really tired?" he suggested as he turned back to the pile, shaking out the clothes. Man, he was so totally taking that kid shopping sometime soon (when he wakes up. _Wake the hell up, Sam_). Nearly everything he owned was either ripped or bloodstained.

"Yeah, I didn't think so," Dean muttered, answering his own question when no reply came from the bed, tossing a shirt with half the buttons missing to the side.

The pile of uninspected clothes grew smaller and smaller until all that was left was a few books, a zippo lighter and a squishy half-melted chocolate bar. It made Dean wonder why Sam got so defensive over his bag, seeing as the kid was so sorely lacking in personal items, but maybe it was just the principle of it, having one thing that was entirely his own.

Dean flipped through the books, wasted a few minutes wondering whether it would be possible to fit a hex bag into a lighter, and pocketed the chocolate.

"Ya snooze, ya lose, Sammy. Unless you wanna wake up and claim it?"

Predictably, Sam didn't answer.

Dean checked the pockets and seams of the duffel bag but both were clear. He shoved Sam's stuff back in and moved on to the laptop and it's case, and then to Sam's wallet on the night stand.

"You better hope there's a hex bag in here," Dean warned as he picked it up. "'cause if there's not, I'm gonna have to move on to a strip search."

Sam had one of those wallets with a ridiculous amount of card pockets and coin holders and note sections but even so, it didn't take long to figure out that it was as much of a dead end as the duffel bag and the laptop had been.

It wasn't actually much of a strip search. Dean wasn't keen on wrestling Sam's limbs out of his clothes but he still made sure that it was a thorough search. He wasn't exactly going to let Sam lay around in a coma because Dean was too embarrassed to make sure there was nothing hiding in his jeans.

Why the hell was Sam wearing his jeans to bed anyway? Dean wondered vaguely before remembering that Sam had crashed out halfway through the Spiderman movie Dean had found to watch, before 9PM even.

The memory made him smile. Sam always reverted to a toddler-like state when he was tired, emphatically denying the need to sleep.

'Oi, princess, you should get changed if you're gonna have a nap,' Dean had teased, gently because a werewolf hunt meant Sam was thinking about Madison, whether he'd admit it or not.

''m not,' Sam had denied, sitting up straighter against the headboard and blinking bleary eyes determinedly at the TV.

'Want me to check under your mattress for peas?' Dean grinned to himself.

'Dean...'

And when Dean turned around Sam had been asleep, fully dressed and sitting up. Dean had shaken his head affectionately. God but he loved that kid.

The memory turned sour. What if Sam had been trying to tell him something in that last waking moment? Dean had assumed he hadn't been sleeping well, plagued by memories of Madison, so it was only logical that he'd crash eventually. But what if Sam had realized that something was wrong?

Dean shook the thoughts out sharply. 'What if's' wouldn't get him anywhere.

"I'm so glad you're not awake for this," he muttered as he checked around the waistband of Sam's boxers (and yes, he did realize, after the fact, that had Sam been awake, he'd have no reason to go rooting around in his brother's unmentionables. Whatever.)

It was an awkward process. Sam flopped where ever Dean rolled him, a tangle of half-shed clothes and limp limbs. Dean tried really hard to stop the words 'dead weight' from crawling into his mind.

Sam was clean though. No hex bags on him or in his stuff. Dean carefully moved him into what he hoped was a comfortable position before moving on.

It took another hour to inspect everything else the two of them owned; the Impala, Dean's duffel, the laundry and weapons bags, the bed and table and chairs and any cracks in the walls or ceiling (and there were a few. It definitely wasn't the best motel they'd ever checked into). Everywhere was empty, completely and utterly.

Sam was still through the entire procedure.

"So no hex bags," Dean concluded finally, staring at Sam as though his sleeping form might give him answers. "Doesn't mean you're not cursed though."

He retrieved his cellphone from the floor and punched in Bobby's number.

"Anything?" Bobby asked when he answered, wasting no time with formalities.

"Nada. Place is clean, Bobby, and Sam's still out."

"Maybe it's a curse," Bobby mused.

"That's what I was thinking." Dean nodded, sinking down into one of the motel's rickety chairs so he could keep an eye on Sam's breathing while he talked.

"Well, I've got some all-purpose counter-curses around here somewhere. I'll dig them out. But Dean, you know for most of these things you need to find the witch and either burn the altar or get them to reverse it themselves."

Dean sucked in a disgruntled breath through his teeth. "Which would be kind of difficult seeing as I've got no idea who put the whammy on him."

"Well, get researching then," Bobby ordered gruffly. "Think of everyone you've interacted with since you got to town and work your way through. I'll call you when I've found something."

"Yeah." Dean pinched the bridge of his nose between his fingers. There were potentially dozens of people that they'd talked to, bought gas or food from, questioned about the werewolf attacks... "Thanks, Bobby."

"Just keep an eye on your brother."

"Yes, sir," Dean replied automatically.

The room was horribly quiet when Dean hung up, even with the steady stream of traffic outside. He contemplated turning on the TV just for some background noise but discarded the idea quickly. He wanted to be able to hear Sam's breathing, or lack of if, God or whatever forbid, things got that far.

It was tempting to just hover (keep watch) over Sam, to get visual confirmation that he was still okay, or at least still alive. Sam definitely wasn't okay. But hovering (damn it, keeping watch in a totally not mother hen kind of way) would get him no where and he had a little brother to fix.

Dean sat down at the laptop, considering the situation. Was it possible that the werewolf, in it's human form, was aware that it turned into a bloodthirsty slobbering monster during the full moon? Could it have figured out what he and Sam were in town for and taken steps to avoid it's extermination? Maybe the answer lay in figuring out the pattern of the attacks, finding the animal and dealing with it.

Dean stared at the laptop screen. Or maybe it lay in one of the dozens of people they had bumped into during their investigations.

"Got any ideas, Sammy?" Dean spoke into the silence. "'cause I could really use your help with this one."

Sam slept on.

Sighing, and wishing he had fresh coffee, Dean pulled up a Word document and set about listing off all the names he could remember.

Gareth Hanks, the architect who'd survived the attack. Melinda Collingworth, the first victim. Daniel Harrington, the second. He had to refer to Sam's meticulous notes to get most of them. OCD freak that he was, Sam had written down the names and details of all the victim's family members that they had interviewed, which came in handy. Dean made a mental note not to mock Sam for his anal retentiveness for at least a week if any of his information led to an answer.

He added the gas station attendant who'd served him when he'd bought gas after they rolled into town, Tom, the name tag had read, and Carol, the waitress at the diner where they'd had breakfast four days in a row. After some thought, the man in a suit who'd asked for their salt joined the list under Diner Patron – name unknown.

There was the motel clerk who'd checked them in, a weedy teenage boy with more zits than clear skin. Then there were the nurses at the hospital that they'd spoken to briefly on their way to visit Gareth Hanks. Gareth's wife, who'd been visiting him when they got there, two guys Dean had played pool against the night before, Melissa the bartender and a pizza delivery boy.

By the time Dean was finished, the list came to almost thirty people, and they had only been in town for a week. And Dean had thought they'd been being inconspicuous.

Dean sat back, rocking the chair up on it's hind legs as he looked over the document he'd created. He let out a low whistle.

"Well, we sure are popular guys, Sammy. And you managed to piss someone off. What'd you do, forget to tip the waitress? Eye up Gareth's wife? I swear, no one finds trouble like you do, kiddo."

Of course, there was the possibility that Dean had pissed someone off and the witch – if that's what they were dealing with – had put the whammy on the wrong brother accidentally, or deliberately, if they were smart enough to realize that the fastest way to really piss Dean off was to mess with Sam. Whatever the case, the wart-y bitch was going down.

As soon as he figured out who it was.

"Okay, I definitely need coffee for this," Dean informed Sam's sleeping figure, pushing off his chair to commandeer Sam's untouched coffee and making his way to the kitchenette's rusty microwave.

He almost didn't hear it over the hum of the machine. No more than a whisper, it still had Dean whipping around and bounding over his bed to reach Sam.

"Sammy?" he asked, hope fluttering (no, like, gnawing or something not totally girly) in his stomach as he crouched down by Sam's bed so that he was level with Sam's face.

Sam's head rolled to the side, turning towards Dean's voice.

"Dean," he sighed again.

"Sam, wake up!" Dean demanded sharply. "That's an order, bitch."

He shook Sam's shoulder and his brother's body rocked bonelessly with the motion.

Sam's eyes stayed closed. "There's no such thing as monsters," he murmured.

**To Be Continued...**


	3. Chapter 3

**There's No Such Thing As Monsters**

**A/N: I don't really have anything to ramble about with this chapter but my posts feel naked without an Authors Note... I hope you all enjoy this chapter.**

**Also, wasn't that a freaking awesome episode last night? *melts at the brilliance* Why is next week so far away?**

**Chapter Three**

"So, do you want to tell me why you don't want to take your medication?"

Sam was in what was apparently _his_ closet of a room. The doctor, a short balding man wearing a white jacket that didn't look like it would be able to button up over his generous stomach, sat on the only chair, forcing Sam to either sit on the bed or stand. Sam stood, leaning against the far wall with his arms crossed.

"Not really," he muttered, rubbing distractedly at his aching head. What could he say? 'Because I'm not schizophrenic, because I'm not supposed to be here and I'm just biding my time until I find a way back to my own reality.' Yeah, that would be a compelling argument in the debate over his sanity.

The doctor rested his clipboard on his knees and folded his hands over it, looking at Sam with professional sincerity. "I know the side effects aren't much fun but I think we've finally found the right dosage. If you take it, I really think we'll start to see an improvement."

He looked at Sam expectantly. Sam avoided his gaze.

"You know," the doctor leant closer, peering at Sam over the top of his glasses. The identification badge clipped to his belt loop read _Dr Benjamin Harper_. "I can't release you from my care unless I believe that you can be trusted to take your medication."

"If I take the pills, will you let me out?" Sam shot back.

Harper frowned. It looked like a complicated process, trying to get his large eyebrows to fall in line. "It's not that simple. You're entrusted into my care. We only want to help you, and I'd like you to trust me when I say that this medication is crucial to managing your condition."

Sam snorted. Did anyone really fall for the whole fake sincerity bit? A person would have to be crazy to... oh yeah. "I don't have a condition," he said finally. "I don't need drugs."

Harper tapped the clipboard with his pen, leaning back in his chair and crossing one leg over the other. "You are aware that you've signed consent forms that allow me to medicate you against your will." It wasn't a question.

Sam stiffened. "You can't do that! It's..." He struggled to find an out. "It's unethical."

Harper was undaunted. "I'm responsible for your well-being as you've agreed that you're incapable of making decisions regarding it. Sometimes that means that I need to protect you from yourself."

"I am capable!" Sam argued as his brain spun in circles trying to think of some sort of compelling argument. God, if they drugged him he'd never be able to figure this out. "You can't... I don't consent!"

Harper's wayward eyebrows were drawn in what Sam supposed was meant to be concern, but he'd spent far too many years lying for a living to not be able to recognise a man who didn't really care any more than his job required.

Being able to read people was an important part of being a hunter and it was a skill Sam had learnt when he was young, mastering it far before Dean, which had been a highlight of the year. Praise from his father was a rare thing, what with Dean constantly doing better, learning moves faster, shooting more accurately. It wasn't that Sam didn't try, just that he wasn't a natural like Dean, and he certainly didn't enjoy it the way his father and brother had seemed to. This though, this was easy. No one ever hid their true feelings as well as they thought they did.

"I'm going to ask you to take your pills one more time," Harper said. "If you refuse I'm going to have to bring Michael in here to assist you. Now, will you take your medication?"

Shit. What could he do? Take the pills and be too drugged up to work his way out of this mess, or refuse the pills and end up drugged anyway? Harper was between him and the door. Electronic locks were between him and a way out. He didn't know who Michael was but he was sure he didn't want to find out. He needed to think. He couldn't think if he was drugged – it had taken him half the morning to remember something as simple as what he'd been doing yesterday. Dean couldn't help him because Dean was bewitched or brainwashed or not real and -

And apparently he had taken too long to make his decision because Harper stood, tucking the clipboard under his arm as he moved to the door, shaking his head in mock disappointment.

"Michael." He beckoned into the corridor.

"No, wait," Sam protested weakly as one of the large men in white, the one who had been outside with the smokers earlier, appeared in the doorway. He took a step back and met wall. "Don't."

Harper stepped aside to allow Michael access. Michael was as tall as Sam, stockier, with golden hair that looked too soft, mismatched with his leathery face, tied back in a ponytail.

"Easy, kid," he said as he approached, hands raised as if Sam was some sort of wild, wounded animal. His voice was gravelly and he smelt like an ashtray, the scent permeating the room as he stepped carefully closer.

Sam took in the wedding ring on Michael's hand, the muscles hidden beneath his scrubs. So this was his job then, this was what the men in white did, handling unruly patients, holding them down so they could be drugged. Sam almost wasted time wondering what kind of person would want to do that for a career.

The room was small enough that with three people squashed between it's walls it felt claustrophobic, like there wasn't enough air for all of them to breathe, or maybe Sam was just panicking. Michael was closing in and there wasn't time to be subtle about this.

Michael made a grab for Sam's wrist. Sam let him grip it, just long enough for Michael to start to think that maybe he'd go quietly and relax a little, then pulled down sharply and twisted his arm inwards, throwing the larger man off balance and breaking the hold simultaneously. He shoved Michael hard, working the cramped room to his advantage as Michael's calves hit the edge of the bed, toppling him onto the mattress.

Harper was half in, half out of the room, yelling something as he pressed back against the door frame. Sam dodged past Michael's flailing feet, twisted around the reaching hand and yanked the key card from Harper's belt as he threw himself out the door, batting away the doctor's feeble attempts at stopping him.

Sam barrelled down the hallway, hospital-issue slippers slapping against the soles of his feet as he ran. He skittered past the middle-aged lady he'd seen smoking, wondering fleetingly what she was doing in the males section of the wing as she pressed herself against the wall with a hand to her heart, eyes wide.

By some absolute miracle, the nurses station was unmanned. Surely there would be at least one, probably more, in the recreation room but all he had to do was get to the door by the desk, get it unlocked and open and _run_. He was pretty certain that the door opened into other wings of the hospital, so there should be plenty of rooms to duck into...

He didn't make it. A mere five steps – _five freaking steps_ – away from the door, something flashed in his peripheral vision, white and large and far too close to have any hope of avoiding it. It crashed into his side and he fell hard against the wall. He spun to fight but his balance was off and there was no manoeuvrability with the wall at his back. He shot out a punch and heard an 'oof!' but another pair of hands were reaching in, latching onto his arms.

Did he hit his head? Pain flared up behind his eyes and his vision bleached out for a moment. When he came back he was halfway down the hall and there was no time to wonder about the strange occurrence.

"No! Damn it, you don't understand. I'm not supposed to be here," he argued, though he knew it was no use. He struggled, more for lack of wanting to give in than any real attempt at getting away. During his apparent black out – why did he black out? - the two men had gained too good of a grip on him. He was back in his room almost as quickly as he'd left and there was no pretence of asking his opinion now.

The men, Michael and another one, shorter with a dark brown crew cut, pushed Sam onto the bed. Michael pulled his arms up to either side of his head while the other fastened soft restraints over his wrists. He tried to kick, let it never be said that Winchesters weren't fighters, but with his arms useless it didn't take long for the men to strap his ankles too.

"Trust me, this is for your own good," Harper said reassuringly (though it wasn't at all reassuring). He was smiling grimly as he appeared over Sam, taking Michael's place.

It definitely didn't make Sam feel any better when the doctor held up a syringe, tapping gently to remove any air bubbles. Where the hell did he pull that from? And what, what...

"No. Don't, please," Sam protested pointlessly, trying to twist away – also pointlessly – as he tracked the needle's progress down to his hip.

Crew cut held him still. Sam squeezed his eyes shut, forcing back helpless tears. _Damn it, suck it up, Sam_, his father's voice demanded. _Don't let them see you're afraid_.

But Sam was afraid. He didn't understand what was going on and a small part of him was wondering whether it was possible that he was actually...

"There," Harper said soothingly as Sam felt a sharp sting in his skin. "You'll feel much better soon."

Sam doubted it.

XXX

It would have been boring, it _should _have been boring, strapped to a bed with nothing to do but stare at the ceiling, but whatever they'd shot him full of made it hard to feel anything at all.

'Content' wasn't quite the right word, though it was as close an adjective as Sam could think of. The panic and frustration were still there, nestled close to fear and confusion, but they were pushed down far below the surface, huddled together in some sedatives trap. Sam tried to think, to plan, use logic to figure out the illogical, but everything was spilling out. He could almost feel his brain leaking out into his hair, dampening the pillow... but that was ridiculous. The drugs, it was just the drugs.

He had the feeling that his thoughts were going round in circles but he couldn't keep up with them. They were always just that little bit ahead, on the tip of his tongue but unreachable nonetheless.

Sam waited. Waited and wished that Dean would come through the door in a doctor's get up, ready to pull of one of their great escapes, all careful planning mixed in with a lot of luck, but he'd already seen Dean and Dean said he was crazy.

"We've been tracking a werewolf," Dean said.

"I know," Sam murmured to the white ceiling. "But what does that have to do with me being here?"

"If you're thinking witchcraft, I doubt it," Dean replied.

Sam frowned, "Why? It must be a curse or something, right?"

Dean was silent and the pause was long enough for Sam's brain to catch up to the conversation. He jerked against the restraints, more like a twitch under the sedatives and turned his head to take in the rest of the room. It was empty. No Dean. But he'd just heard him, hadn't he?

"Dean?" he asked the room.

There was no reply and Sam found himself wondering whether that was a good thing. Hearing voices wasn't exactly a compelling argument on the 'not crazy' front and damn but Sam needed more on his side than a lifetime of memories that everyone was telling him weren't real. Maybe the drugs were messing with his head.

Yeah, that must be it. He was imagining things, 'tripping out' as Dean would put it, 'on the good stuff'.

"Think there's any chance that you're just really, really tired?" Dean suggested.

"Maybe," Sam mused, and then jolted again. He didn't hear that. No, nope, definitely not. Dean wasn't there so no way was Sam hearing him. Maybe he was asleep without actually realizing it. That wasn't too far-fetched. It would be hard to tell while under the influence of drugs that seemed to keep him suspended in the twilight between waking and dreaming. He could easily have dozed off and not noticed the difference.

"I'm dreaming," Sam decided aloud.

"That's what I was thinking," Dean agreed.

Damn it. "Shut up," Sam moaned, squeezing his eyes shut. "You're not helping."

The darkness behind his eyelids was quiet. Sam let himself sink into it. He'd rest. He'd rest and everything would make more sense when he woke up.

His subconscious had other ideas though, spinning one confusing scene into another; Dean beside him in the Impala as they pulled up outside the hospital, uncomfortable in a suit with the grouchy look to prove it. SAINT MARGARETS written in red capitals above the entrance and that man in the hospital bed saying, "It was huge. It must be the shock but I could have sworn it looked almost human... it was a wolf though, that's what they're saying..." and Sam falling through a hole in someone else's mind.

A game of Connect Four with all the spaces filled in with red checkers and syringes filled with golden liquids staring at him hungrily. Spiderman swooping around the main room of the ward on a web and Sam with a gun but no silver bullets to stop the werewolf from tearing patients apart.

Dean was there but his back was turned and the werewolf was creeping towards him. Sam yelled his name but Dean didn't hear and something, something terrifying and inexplicable was trying to pull Sam away. He didn't know where but he knew he didn't want to go. He couldn't help Dean if he went, and then Rosalie was there, the dark-haired girl who said she knew him. She stood in front of Sam, keeping him from Dean, and held out her drawing, which morphed into a crime scene photo of one of the werewolf's victims, then Dean's face, then Sam's, and when she raised her head her eyes were yellow and she spoke with Dean's voice -

"Sam, wake up! That's an order, bitch!"

Sam snapped back to consciousness, the swirl of images still trapped behind his eyelids. He struggled briefly against the hands that held him, heart racing and breathing hard, before remembering. He was still in his room, still in the psychiatric ward, still tied down, and still alone.

He took a moment to simply calm down, to control his breathing and attempt to clear his head.

Maybe he was crazy. Maybe... could they be right? But he couldn't have made all that up, could he? He couldn't have just imagined his whole life, right?

Licking dry lips, feeling the reality of his restraints, soft but firm over his wrists and ankles, the bed beneath him and the walls that refused to disappear no matter how much he willed them to, Sam tried out the words Dean had thrown at him earlier.

"There's no such thing as monsters."

XXX

"You shouldn't try to run, you know."

Sam halted his progression across the room, looking down to see the top of Rosalie's head. The girl sat, bent over a drawing just like yesterday, at one of the round tables with the skinny girl Sam had seen watching TV.

For wont of anything else to do, Sam sat down in the only free seat.

"They wanted to drug me," he said, as though he had to explain himself. In hindsight, of course running was a bad idea. He'd ended up worse than if he'd just given in in the first place, and when Kelly came round that morning he'd had no choice but to take the pills she offered. Refusing had gotten him no where and worse, he'd lost half a day during which he could have been figuring things out.

Rosalie nodded, scribbling intently. "They shouldn't have done that. You're not crazy. I'm not crazy either but they drug me too."

"I'm not supposed to be here," Sam said. Maybe if he said it enough it would be easier to keep believing it. "My brother... he's going to get me out."

"What brother?" the skinny girl asked, eyebrows raised. Sam could see her collarbones jutting out above the V-neck of her shirt.

"He was here yesterday." Or was he? It might not have been the real Dean.

The girl snorted. "You're crazy. No one visited you yesterday. No one ever visits you."

Sam frowned, unsure of how to reply.

"If you do have family," the girl continued spitefully, "They're probably the ones who put you in here, got you out of the way so they could carry on their lives."

"Does anyone visit you?" Sam asked sceptically, harsher than he meant to but seriously, he was sick of people confusing the hell out of him. He was having enough trouble figuring out what the hell was going on without people being contradictory.

The skinny girl faltered, just for a second before her scowl fell back into place. "I'm sick of this," she announced. "You're nuts. _All of you_ are fucking nuts. I'm the one who's not supposed to be here."

She shoved her chair back and flounced off, all sunken skin and sharp edges. Sam watched her stalk over to the ranch slider and step outside, dropping the cigarette she'd pulled from her pocket on her first attempt to bring it to her mouth.

"Don't worry," Rosalie said calmly, reaching for the yellow pen to add flames to the candles she was drawing. "She's the crazy one. Not us."

**To Be Continued...**


	4. Chapter 4

**There's No Such Thing As Monsters**

**A/N: The spells (not the counter-curses) that Dean uses in this chapter are real spells, though I may have tweaked parts of them or left bits out to make them fit a bit better. As always, I'd love to hear what everyone thinks of this :)**

**Chapter Four**

Witches. Dean hated witches.

He'd hated them even before one of them put the whammy on Sam. They were gross and nasty and creepy, and you couldn't even kill them because technically they were human, even if they had sold their souls to demons.

Even if he left out all of those perfectly acceptable reasons, Dean would have felt justified in his hatred purely because his motel room now smelt like a freaking New Age store, wax and incense, and who knew how long it would take to get that flowery scent out of his clothes.

Worse than that though, Sam hadn't woken up in over 24 hours and it was starting to seem as though Dean was destined to burn the place down before he found something that worked.

Bobby had managed to come up with five counter-curses, three he was doubtful about, and Dad's journal held two, but none of them had done anything other than stink up the place. Sam stayed asleep, unnaturally so. Sam was a restless sleeper, always had been. He twisted and turned, tangled himself in bedsheets, had nightmares and screamed. Sleeping in the same bed with him when they were young and Dad was too broke to pay for something adequate had always been rough. Sharing the back seat of the Impala was worse. But now Sam was still, motionless, in some sort of supernatural coma.

Dean was getting sick of singeing his fingertips, and the carpet looked like the herbs and spices section of the supermarket had thrown up on it. He definitely wasn't cut out for witchcraft.

"Don't you worry, Sammy. I've still got some tricks up my sleeve," he muttered absently as he rearranged the candles.

With no counter-curses left to try, Dean was kind of improvising but hey, that was what he did best, and maybe it was just a simple spell anyway. Maybe he was over-complicating things.

He didn't have a cauldron – why the fuck would he have a cauldron? - but he'd found a rusty old pot under the sink in the kitchenette. The bottom was so burnt that it looked like it might eventually just crumble into ash but it would do. He was just lucky that Sam was into seances and such on occasion (of course Sam was into it. Sam was into everything. Kid was freaky smart), if the job called for it, so the Impala's trunk was stocked with pretty much everything else he needed. He made a mental note not to bug Sam about it being a waste of space, even if he preferred the 'guns blazing' route.

The candles were starting to burn low now but they would probably last. The lambs blood he'd needed for one of Dad's counter-curses had been more of a mission because he hadn't wanted to leave Sam, but after a few moments standing around helplessly he'd conceded that it probably wasn't going to magically materialize in the motel room (although stranger things had happened – just never to their good fortune). Leaving Sam with strict orders to keep breathing and maybe wake up if he felt so inclined, Dean had rushed to the local butchers and fed the perplexed shop keep a lame story about a little brother needing it for a science project. He shouldn't have bothered really, because, of course, the curse-breaker was a dud.

Moving on from the counter-curses, Dean flicked through Dad's journal until he found the ancient Egyptian recipe he was looking for.

"You a secret witch, Sammy?" he asked idly as he mixed together an oil of equal parts frankincense, musk and sandalwood. "Why else would you insist on dragging all this stuff around with us?"

Despite what logic told him, Dean was still holding some vague hope for an answer (as if it would be that simple for them). It was too quiet when he didn't talk. Sam hadn't said anything since he'd murmured Dean's name and something about monsters not being real. Which didn't make sense because, well, duh, of course monsters were real. He'd spent some time trying to figure out if there was a clue in there but if there was, it was bloody cryptic. More likely it was just the nonsensical rambling of the bewitched.

Dean lit the frankincense and myrrh incense and held it dumbly for a moment. According to the journal, he was supposed to pass the object he wanted cleansed and consecrated through the smoke. A note in the margin assured him that the quick ritual could be used on a person but damned if he could figure out how to hold Sam over the incense. He settled for waving it around his motionless brother, getting as much of the smoke to curl over Sam's skin as possible. That done, he picked up the oil he'd made and anointed Sam with it.

Jesus, _anointed_. That made it sound far more holy than the simple act of clucking some oil onto his brother had any right to.

That was it. Those ancient Egyptians sure knew how to keep their witchcraft short and sweet. Dean waited. Sam breathed in and out. The only reaction Dean got was a slight crinkling of Sam's nose, as if the smell of the oils and incense were irritating him.

Well, Dean supposed that was something. At least Sam was vaguely reacting, right? Okay, so it was still a long way from actually waking up but...

Dean sighed. But nothing. Moving on.

Kneeling on the bed and tugging Sam's shirt up, Dean produced a marker and carefully drew a banishing pentagram over Sam's chest. Simple but often effective (so he was told) in getting rid of unwanted energies.

Not this time though.

"Damn it, Sam," Dean muttered. "Sometimes I really think the universe is out to get you."

Abandoning the bed, Dean grabbed a bottle of vinegar from the table.

"This is kind of weird," he informed his unconscious brother, "But Dad's journal says that in folk magick, vinegar can be used to banish stuff like curses, dunno why – you probably would, wouldn't you, ya walking encyclopedia – so..."

He eyed the bottle doubtfully, then shrugged and tilted it over Sam. The vinegar sloshed out, soaking Sam's shirt, his jeans, his hair. Dean even tipped some carefully into Sam's mouth, just to be thorough (totally not because he got some sort of big brother kick out of force-feeding his little brother vinegar). Sam choked slightly, face twisting at the taste, and shivered at the sudden dampness, but didn't wake.

Tossing the empty bottle aside, Dean turned widdershins until he was dizzy, feeling like an idiot. Why couldn't they just say counter-clockwise like normal people? And seriously, how was spinning in circles meant to banish anything?

He burnt sage and wafted the smoke around the room and over Sam, feeling like he was really grasping at straws now (maybe because he was _really_ grasping at straws now). Sage smoke was supposed to cleanse stuff; energy and thoughts, the 'aura' and all that hippy jazz, so the likelihood of it waking someone from some sort of supernatural coma was... well, it wasn't very likely.

"You so owe me for all this," Dean grumbled as Sam stubbornly slept on.

Back to Dad's journal.

"There must be something else I can try," he murmured to himself, flipping through pages on restless spirits and summonings. He really wished Dad had kept the thing in some sort of decent order, or maybe made an index at the back or _something_, but no, Wendigo's were jammed in next to scribblings about water sprites, a tattered newspaper article about some mysterious deaths taped on top of some old Indian fable. How did Dad ever find anything?

Not that Dad would ever need to find anything in the journal aga-

_There_. A list caught his eye before his morose train of thought could go any further. About halfway through the journal, crammed down at the bottom of a page mostly taken up by a rough drawing of what might have been a Black Dog, was a list of ingredients for a spell bag aimed at neutralizing bad intentions and actions.

If Sam had caught the eye of a witch and it was a simple spell rather than a curse, it should do the trick. Maybe Dean _was_ thinking too big. Curses tended to be complicated, taking time and a lot of ingredients and equipment. A spell would have been the easier option.

Dean had never quite figured out how simple herbs and such-like could hold so much magick. Sure, Sam would ramble on about things growing in the earth and the supposed power of Mother Nature – yes, he actually said _Mother Nature_. Dean had had a field day – and everything being connected or _entwined_ in some quantum reality or some sort of crap, but to Dean? Well, to Dean they were just dead plants really.

Like, how was garlic powder supposed to help? And Rue; there was some scribble next to it but it was so sloppy that all Dean could make out was something about it being a traditional Mayan remedy for Envidia, whatever that was.

The Witch Hazel leaves and twigs at least sounded fitting for casting a spell, but charcoal powder? That wasn't even a herb. Why the hell did Sam keep all these things anyway?

Dean wasted a decent amount of time searching through Sam's collection of rocks for a Royal Azel Stone, before checking Dad's notes again and realizing that it was the same thing as Sugilite, and then he had to sacrifice a perfectly good red t-shirt to make a red bag like the spell demanded. Not that he ever actually wore the t-shirt and he thought it might have originally been Sam's anyway, but he kept it around for when they were overdue on going to the laundromat or their monster of the week shredded his last decent shirt and it had saved him from walking around half naked a couple of times.

Now he had to bury it, which of course meant leaving the motel room, which meant leaving Sam, which meant he wasn't too thrilled with the idea.

Dean stood over Sam's bed uncertainly, spell bag in hand.

"Okay, kiddo, I gotta go bury this sucker. You better be awake when I get back 'cause I'm running out of ideas here."

He chewed his bottom lip for a moment, wondering if he should clean Sam up before he left. Poor kid was covered in vinegar and oil, with a pentagram drawn on his chest, his hair clinging to his forehead damply, and if this went on much longer they were getting dangerously close to sponge bath territory and that was some awkwardness he hoped to avoid. At least Sam had only pissed himself once – and that was kind of a good thing because it meant he wasn't dehydrated – and Dean had had the foresight to be prepared, seeing as he had far too much experience in the caring-for-little-brother-post-hunt-gone-wrong department.

Anyway, it would be a hell of a way to wake up, if the bag worked as soon as Dean buried it. Alone in a room that looked like a coven of witches had been having some kind of spell-filled orgy.

Dean settled with a note, quickly scrawling '_Don't freak out. Be back soon_' and leaving it on the night-stand.

Then he was out the door, after carefully checking the salt lines and the wards they always put up, locking it behind him. It didn't make him feel much better about leaving Sam alone and completely defenceless.

It was a bit of a walk – far longer than Dean wanted it to be – trying to find somewhere that wasn't concrete or the potted plants outside the motel. He had a feeling that burying the bag in a tub would be cheating. Sam would probably say something about how it had to find roots and connect with the earth's core or some other gibberish, so Dean walked until he found a small park, about 15 minutes away from the motel, trying hard not to think about how every step took him further away from Sam or imagine all the things that could happen in the time he was gone. If Sam stopped breathing there would be no one to -

Focus. The faster he got his done, the faster he could get back to Sam and hopefully Sam would be awake and then he could take care of his breathing himself.

Thankfully, there weren't too many parents hanging around to wonder what he was up to and the two women who were there seemed too caught up in chatting over their take-away coffees and keeping an eye on the three children, two boys and a girl, who seemed to be having some sort of argument over the slide.

Digging a small hole in the grass and dropping the bag in, Dean wondered whether a crossroads would be more appropriate but the spell hadn't specified and they always specified if it was important so he figured any old dirt would do.

Bag buried, Dean did his best to nonchalantly amble his way out of the park, past the distracted parents, but as soon as he was out of view he broke into a run, dodging pedestrians as he flashed past store fronts, feet smacking against the pavement.

He imagined Sam, sitting bolt upright as the last of the dirt covered the bag, dark eyes searching for Dean, greeted by the scent of vinegar and frankincense and sage. Finding the note on the bedside table and hopefully obeying the written order, trusting Dean's words. Sam not freaking out, quick eyes darting around the room, the herbs spilled on the floor and table, Dad's journal open on the page with the spell bag ingredients, the ruined red shirt. Trying to add up the pieces and put together some semblance of an idea about what happened while he waits for Dean to appear and explain.

Maybe Sam would be in the shower when Dean got back, washing all the gunk off, or sitting at the table, inspecting the spell Dean had used, or -

Dean skidded to a halt by the motel room door, yanking the key from his pocket and shoving it in the lock. He flung the door open.

Or lying on the bed, exactly where Dean had left him.

Breathing heavily, Dean sunk down on his own bed, gazing helplessly at Sam.

Maybe one of the spells or counter-curses would take effect at midnight, or 3AM, the witching hour. That was possible. Maybe they just needed some time to start working.

Dean swiped his hands down his face. Or maybe they just wouldn't work at all.

**To Be Continued...**


	5. Chapter 5

**There's No Such Thing As Monsters**

**Chapter Five**

Mary Winchester was beautiful.

She sat in the chair across the table from Sam, having appeared there sometime between him looking around the room doubtfully and rubbing his eyes in some vague, fruitless attempt at getting rid of the headache that just wouldn't go away, and was beautiful.

Sam had only ever seen photographs and he hadn't realized until now that still-frame didn't do her justice, didn't capture everything that needed to be captured.

She was older than the photo's depicted her, of course, but there was no mistaking that it was her, her features softened with time but not faded. Her hair still golden, lighter than Dean's, with no hints of grey or fake shine of dye. She had laugh lines around her eyes, that crinkled deeper when she smiled, which she did when she realized she'd caught Sam's attention.

"Hello, Sam."

Sam could only stare, tongue-tied and bewildered, and his first thought was that for some reason he'd expected her to call him Sammy, before the rest of it sunk in.

A spell couldn't bring back the dead. Not as they were when they were alive, but Mary didn't look like she was about to try to eat him. He hadn't thought... Dean had said but Dean was bewitched, he couldn't possibly have been telling the truth.

Mary (the hallucination, something wearing her face, figment of his imagination... Mum?) didn't seem fazed by his silence. "I brought you some cookies," she said, pushing a plastic container across the table.

Sam lifted a hand and touched his fingers to the smooth surface. Real. Real real real, everything felt read, but it couldn't be real.

Could it?

"Mum?" he asked shakily, unable to stop himself.

"I know it's been a few days, but work's been hectic and I haven't had the chance..." she trailed off, smile fading as she drummed her knuckles on the tabletop in a nervous gesture Sam had always associated with Dean.

"It's okay," Sam said automatically. Anything to bring back that smile. He wanted to ask what her job was. He wanted to ask if she had come to his soccer matches, his high school graduation, if she helped with homework or baked or did any of the things he had imagined she would do while he was growing up. "I thought... I thought you were..."

"I know." Mary reached across the table and covered his hand with hers, soft and warm and _there_. Sam couldn't stop staring at it, trying to reconcile the conflicting messages his body and mind were sending him. _Real_, screamed one. _It's a trick_, his mind yelled back.

"I know, honey," Mary continued. "It's okay. It's not your fault. You're ill, but you're going to get better."

She looked so sincere, so reassuring.

"I'm... sick?" Sam said, asked. He didn't know what was real any more. Maybe Mary (_Mum_) was right. Maybe they were all right. Maybe he was sick. She was here. Was that proof enough?

He sat up straighter as a sudden thought occurred to him. "Is... is Jess? Is she...?"

Mary's face morphed into a sympathetic frown, her hand squeezing his. "Oh, no, honey. Jess died in a fire at your apartment, remember?"

Sam slumped, hope extinguished. "Yeah. I remember."

Mary gave his hand an extra tight squeeze. "I'm sorry, Sam."

Sam pushed it to the back of his mind, mentally apologizing to Jess as he did so but even after all this time, thinking about her sometimes made him feel like he was being torn in half, and he couldn't deal with that on top of everything else.

"What about Dad? Is he...?"

Mary's face took on the exact look that Dean got when he didn't approve of something. "Your father... struggles with this. He has a hard time understanding your illness." She sighed. "And he feels guilty. You both said some harsh things to each other before we realized you were sick."

"Oh."

Mary's smile appeared again, though it looked forced. "It's all going to be okay, Sam. As soon as you're well you can come home and everything will be okay."

Sam nodded dumbly. Maybe... could it be possible that his whole life had been a figment of his imagination? Suddenly, instead of books on monsters, he was craving books on schizophrenia. Was he looking for answers in the wrong place? Maybe medical texts could explain this better than anything in Bobby's library. Was Bobby even real? Or was he part of a delusion that Sam had created?

No.

No. This was wrong and Sam knew it. He couldn't have... it couldn't be... no, this wasn't real. He had to remember that. He couldn't get drawn into this fantasy, this spell or whatever it was. He had to think and find a way out.

But doubts were creeping in. It felt real. Mum felt real. He could smell her perfume. The people here felt real. The drugs affected him like they were real.

Sam had never heard of a spell this powerful, and how many creatures were there that could suck a person into a dream world? He wished that he could understand. He wished...

_Wish_.

"Sam?" Mary asked suddenly. It sounded as though it wasn't the first time she'd said something.

Sam jolted out of his musings, blinking.

"You're tired," Mary said kindly. She looked tired too. Strained. Sam supposed that visiting your crazy son in a mental ward was rather draining. "I should let you rest."

Sam nodded wordlessly, mind whirring over the possibilities. He pushed the thoughts back, just for a moment, as he stood with Mary and she stepped around the table, folding him into her arms.

She was smaller than Sam, and warm. He felt her breath against his collarbone as he let himself melt into the embrace. In that moment, Sam didn't care whether it was real or not. He _wanted_ it to be real, more than he wanted to go back to his own reality. Mum was alive. Dad was alive. Dean was there, and there were no monsters coming to tear his family apart. No demons and their elusive master plans, or creatures to risk their lives for. Maybe it _was_ real. No weapons or sigils or battle scars. A world without hunting or being afraid.

Then Mary pulled away, and Sam came back to his senses as the locked door closed behind her. This wasn't a perfect world. This was a prison.

XXX

Wish.

It could be the answer Sam had been looking for. Why hadn't he thought of it before? It hadn't been long since their last entanglement with a Djinn. If it hadn't been for the drugs they kept forcing on him (and did he read somewhere that medication for schizophrenia could cause psychosis in people without the illness? Not thinking about that) he could have solved this on the first day.

He couldn't remember hunting a Djinn this time around. He was sure it was a werewolf. Had he accidentally stumbled into a Djinn's lair while tracking the beast? Or was he missing a chunk of time? He wished his memories weren't quite so foggy. The harder he tried to make sense of them, the more confusing they got. He'd try to think of what he was doing before he got here, and instead of Dean he'd get a flash of an unfamiliar street, viewed as though he was sitting in a doorway. Or he'd try to remember details of a past hunt and get a glimpse of a watercolour painting. Weird...

Nothing made sense, except a Djinn. It had to be a Djinn, but...

What could he have wished for that would've landed him in a psychiatric unit? Dean had told him that his wish had been subconscious. He'd never voice it out loud. So, what? Sam subconsciously wished that he was locked up? That he was crazy? Wouldn't he rather that Jess were alive? Or Mum or Dad?

Sam stared sightlessly at the TV in front of him, thinking hard.

Maybe... maybe he wished for a world without monsters. Maybe...

Sam almost leapt out of his chair as a sudden sensation, like water dripping over him, crawled over his skin. He shuddered, hands automatically flying to his face, his hair, running over his clothes as he spun in his seat.

There was no one behind him. His clothes felt dry but the damp sensation remained, along with the smell of... vinegar? So strong he could taste it. And something like incense, hanging thick in air that had previously held only the generic scent of a hospital.

Sam turned back to the TV, letting out a shaky breath. He was imagining things. Must be imagining things. (He wished Dean was here to tell him that he wasn't crazy.) He had to think. Dean had wished that Mum was still alive and he'd retained his memories of monsters and hunting. SO if Sam wished that there was no such thing as monsters but still kept his memories, wouldn't it be logical that he'd ended up here?

Okay, so... from what little Sam had managed to get out of Dean, he knew that his brother had gotten himself out of his messed up reality by – the thought made Sam feel sick – stabbing himself. So Sam just had to...

No knives in a psychiatric unit. Of course not. The whole point of hospitals like this was to stop people from killing themselves. Great.

He'd think of something though. Winchesters were nothing if not resourceful.

Sam almost jumped again when Rosalie plunked down on the couch beside him (And ow, was it the meds that gave him this headache? It was always there, sometimes flaring up for brief periods before dying down to a background ache).

"I drew you a picture," she said, holding out a bit of paper.

"Thanks," Sam said distractedly, reaching out for it.

"I'm going to get out of here," Rosalie continued, "You're in my head so you're coming too."

"Is that right?" Sam mumbled, eyes roaming the room for anything that could prove useful.

Rosalie huffed impatiently. "Do you like my picture?"

"Oh, yeah, it's-" Sam stopped, his half-hearted glance turning into a full on stare.

It was disturbingly accurate. Black pen painstakingly filled in the space around the windows, depicted on an angle so one side and the front windscreen were visible, three thick tyres and a boot big enough to hide a body in, but it was the licence plate that really demanded his attention.

CNK80Q3. Dean had compromised by changing the plates when Sam pointed out that driving around in a classic car wasn't smart while hiding from the Feds.

He was looking at a drawing of the Impala.

Sam spun to face Rosalie, his grasp on the drawing crinkling the paper. "How did you draw this? How do you know this car?"

Rosalie recoiled slightly at his intensity. "You're in my head," she said uncertainly.

"Did you see it somewhere?" Sam waved the paper in Rosalie's face. "Through a window? Or... or somewhere else? Not here. Like, outside a warehouse or something? Did you go into a warehouse?"

"You're in my head," Rosalie repeated in a whisper, cringing back. "I don't know how to get you out."

"Okay." Sam took a deep breath, calculating this new development.

He looked Rosalie over with new eyes. Dark hair, same type of scrubs that he was wearing, wristband slipping down her arm proclaiming her Rosalie Jones, followed by her date of birth and what was probably her date of admission.

Dean said there had been a girl. A girl in his fake world that hadn't belonged. A girl who was actually strung up near him in the Djinn's lair. Sam shuddered at the sudden image in his head of him and Rosalie strung up the same way, the Djinn feeding off of them.

"Okay, listen." Sam leant in closer. He could fix this. "I think, I think this isn't real. It's, like... a dream. It's just... do you remember making a wish?"

"A wish?" Rosalie echoed, sounding bewildered.

"Yeah, like..." Sam trailed off, unable to think of a wish that could have brought this girl here. He shook his head. "Look, don't worry about the wish. I've figured this out and I know how to get out of here. And when I'm out, I'll get you out too, I promise. My brother and me, we'll help you."

Rosalie stared at him, eyebrows drawn doubtfully, and didn't answer.

XXX

Dinner at the psychiatric ward was served on tinfoil plates.

It was a silly mistake to make really, plastic would have been safer, but Sam wasn't about to point that out. It wasn't hard to slip one under his scrubs and smuggle it back to his room.

He had to time this right. The nurses checked the rooms every half hour after lights out. It was easier to think about this in steps, stages that he had to complete. Not thinking about what he was actually doing.

It was like preparing for a hunt. Focus, plan, get everything together as needed. Take a breath and don't be scared of what you're getting into.

Carefully, Sam bent the tin plate in half and smoothed out the bend, pressing it flat. He unfolded it and, in one smooth movement, ripped the plate in half along the crease.

Left with two halves, Sam discarded one and bent the remaining half again, repeating the process until he had a bit more than a quarter of a plate, complete with a sharp pointed edge.

Soft footsteps shuffled down the hallway. Hurriedly, Sam slipped the bits of plate under his bed and lay down, pulling the sheets up. He turned away from the door and it's little shade-covered window, eyes closed, listening. 

The footsteps came to a stop outside his door. Sam held his breath. There was silence for what felt like an unreasonably long time, while Sam motionlessly panicked. What if they caught him? He'd never get another chance. Would Dean find him in time? And Rosalie. If he failed then she'd die too. _Go away, go away_...

The footsteps moved on, soft shoes squeaking against the linoleum floor. Sam let out his breath – and was that a small part of him that was disappointed? A tiny selfish part that cried out at the nurses failure to stop him. He didn't want to do this – tossing the covers back and reaching under the bed.

He held the shard of plate up in the muffled light and moved it to his wrist. He took a deep breath and tried to will his heart to stop it's attempt at beating out of his chest, as if it was trying to get in as many beats as it could before it stopped. (It wouldn't stop. Not really. He'd wake up in the real world and he'd be okay.) Gotta do it quick. He only had half an hour. Gotta do it now.

But the doubts were taking over. What if he was wrong? What if it wasn't a Djinn and his plan only ended in him being dead? What if he really was crazy? Schizophrenic like they said, and all this stuff about monsters was a delusion?

What if he was making a terrible mistake?

No. Rosalie drew that picture. She drew the Impala. It had to mean something. (But what if it didn't mean what he thought it did?) He had to be right.

He wished Dean were here.

There really was no time for second thoughts. He had to do this if he wanted to get back to Dean, if he wanted to save Rosalie, if he wanted to save himself.

Sam blew out a shuddering breath and steadied his hands. He pressed the blade down hard, and drew it along the thin blue vein that snaked up his wrist. Blood welled up and spilled over his skin, dripped onto the sheets at an alarming rate. Adrenaline crashed through his system.

The second wrist was sliced shakily, fingers and make-shift blade slick with blood.

There was a kind of shock-y disbelief at the sight of his wrists split open and streaming (and God, it felt real. What if it was real? It hurt like it was real and the blood was warm, so dark that it was almost purple and Jesus, _shit_, please don't let this be real).

He couldn't take it back now, couldn't change his mind and come up with a better plan. Sam lay back on the bed, breathing hard and panicked, and waited to wake up somewhere else.

TBC...


	6. Chapter 6

**There's No Such Thing As Monsters**

**A/N: Apologies! I tried to get this up sooner, but it's been a hectic week. I won't bore you with the details. Here's the new chapter.**

**Chapter Six**

XXX

"What did you do to my brother?" Dean demanded, gun level.

He was cutting it close. Barely an hour until moonrise, but it had taken too long to find the connection. Dean could put things together as well as the next hunter, maybe better, but he had to admit that he'd let himself get slack since Sam jumped back in on the Great Winchester Road Trip, letting his brother do the lion's share of the research. Werewolf cases were tricky though. With spirits you could usually find out who the resident casper was by digging through the history of the house it was haunting. Werewolves could be anyone, and their victims could be as random as they could be planned.

Dean was pinning all his hopes on this. Find the werewolf, find the witch. It was the only thing he could think of that made sense. A werewolf aware of it's condition, using witchcraft to take out threats between full moons.

"Please, I don't know your brother!" the petite blonde woman sobbed, backed into a corner of her apartment.

She was a hairdresser, of all things, small and pixie-like with too many piercings and bleached hair. She couldn't have been older than 20, and the only good thing Dean could take from this whole mess was that Sammy wasn't awake to see him shoot her.

Dean hated werewolf hunts. He'd hated them even before the showdown with Madison and since then he'd avoided them whenever he could. It was Sam who'd insisted on this one – damn self-sacrificing emo that he was. Why was it that Dean got the impression that Sam was punishing himself for things he had no control over, or things that he thought he was destined to do if Dean didn't follow through with his promise? (And he wouldn't do it, damn it. He didn't think he could make himself any clearer than that. If it was the last thing he did he was going to save Sam, now and any time that required it in the future.)

Dean had tried to find an out but Sam had used the fail-safe argument that people were in danger (and damn Sam for being so logical about it), and after Dean had checked and double-checked that there were no other hunters in the area, he'd grudgingly conceded that Sam was right. They had to take it.

Anyway, Dean hated werewolf cases because beneath the monster was an innocent that he had no hope of saving, a civilian he couldn't rescue, and that wasn't what he signed up for.

He wasn't exactly sure what half of Carrie Fisher's clients had done to piss her off but from what he could figure out, Carrie had been having an affair with one of the victims, broken off when his wife (another victim) had clued on, and had some sort of rivalry going on with another. It was enough for the pieces to fall into place, and if he could just find an altar hidden away in her gaudy apartment then he could finish this up and leave it behind as a bad job, the memories of which he could chase away with strong spirits and shooting something that deserved it.

"What did you do?" Dean asked again, stepping closer to show that he wasn't messing around.

"Oh God, oh God." Carrie did a nervous little dance with her feet, hands fluttering up by her neck. "Please, just... take whatever you want. I won't call the cops, I swear, just please, please don't hurt me."

Dean hesitated. If it was an act it was a good one. Carrie had gone white, her piercings glinting in the glow from the street lights and she looked horrifyingly close to tears, but witches were good at pulling the wool over people's eyes.

"Don't move," he ordered, layering the command with a wordless threat.

Carried nodded, then stopped abruptly as though she'd just figured out that nodding was moving, staring at him with wide eyes.

Dean was glad that her apartment was nothing more than a bedsit. One room with everything crammed in. He strode to the bookcase, keeping an eye, and his weapon, on Carrie as he tugged books out, tearing off covers that might be hiding something more sinister underneath. All he found were trashy romance novels, a few textbooks for community college and the complete set of Harry Potter (a witch with a sense of humour?).

He pulled out drawers, tossed clothes on the floor, rummaged through the kitchen cupboards. He checked under the bed and in the couch and the closet. No spell books, no altar, no suspicious herbs. Of course it wouldn't be that simple.

But she was still a werewolf.

Dean took his place in front of the girl, in the centre of the room, gun raised again.

"You didn't do anything to my brother?" he asked.

Carrie shook her head vigorously. "I don't know your brother. God, I don't know your brother, I swear. I didn't do anything. Please..."

Dean's shoulders slumped. There was no evidence of witchcraft in the apartment, no reason to believe she was lying. He was back to the drawing board. Except now he could finish the case he and Sam had been working on.

Carrie must have noted the change in his demeanour because she sagged too, hands lowering a little from her position of surrender. "So... so, you can let me go. I'm..." she gulped in a breath. She looked so freaking _young_, damn it. "I'm sorry about, about your brother, whatever happened, but, but you can let me go now, right?"

Dean swallowed. Why did she have to be so young? "I can't." This was what he hated about werewolf hunts. "I'm sorry, I am. It's not your fault, but..."

He clicked the gun's safety off.

Carrie made a noise somewhere between a shriek and a sob. "No! No, please! You can't, you can't..." Her eyes darted from side to side, looking for an escape, looking for an excuse. Her hands reached for her abdomen, curling there. "I'm pregnant," she blurted. "Oh God, I'm pregnant, you cant – _Please_!"

God freaking damn it to Hell and back. The gun wobbled in Dean's hand. She was a monster, but right now she was a terrified teenager, pregnant, unless she was grasping at straws to find something that would stop him. How could he do it? How had Sam found the strength?

The moonlight spilled through the window and Carrie's face shimmered, skin stretching grotesquely. Teeth lengthened and sharpened and her whole body seemed to ripple.

Dean swallowed down bile and shot her in the heart.

XXX

"We're never hunting a werewolf again," Dean emphatically informed Sam's sleeping figure as he banged the motel door shut.

He staggered the few steps to his bed and flopped down on his back, feet still on the carpet. He tipped his head back so that he was looking at Sam upside down. "You hear that, Sammy? Never again. Werewolves no longer have to fear the Winchesters."

Sam's face was tilted towards him, lank hair falling over one eye, lips parted slightly as he breathed steadily in and out.

Dean closed his eyes. God, but he was tired. There was only so long a person could live on caffeine and cat naps. He pinched the bridge of his nose. "So the werewolf wasn't a witch. Which means there must be some other frog-breathing, warty bitch hanging around town." He sighed. "I don't even know where to start, Sammy."

"Rosalie."

Dean snapped his eyes open. He bolted upright, previous exhaustion forgotten, and spun around, tangling in the bed sheets to land in an undignified heap on the floor by Sam's bed. "Sam? Hey, you with me?" he demanded, clambering vaguely upright and taking Sam's face in his hands, thumbs curling over his cheeks. "Sam!"

Sam's eyelids fluttered. "Go'a save... 'alie... D'n?"

Slits of hazel appeared. Dean shook him lightly and Sam's eyes opened, pupils grossly dilated.

"Sam, hey, wake up, c'mon, that's it." Encouragements tumbled from Dean's mouth as Sam gazed foggily up at him.

"... get th' Djinn?" Sam mumbled faintly. "... 'ere's Rosalie?"

"Hey, stay with me, Sammy," Dean ordered as Sam gazed through him rather than at him. "Who's Rosalie?"

But the awareness was already fading from Sam's eyes, eyelids drooping again.

"Sam!" Dean was clenching the kids face hard enough to hurt but Sam was oblivious. "Come on, Sam, help me out here. Help me fix this. Who's Rosalie? Give me a last name. Sam!"

Sam's eyes slid to the side, dull and unfocussed. "... not a warehouse...?"

"Sam, come on. Give me something to work with," Dean begged, bent so close that their foreheads almost touched. "What's Rosalie's last name?"

Sam frowned, confused, his eyes slipping closed.

"Sam!" Dean gave him another rough shake.

"Jones," Sam breathed finally. "'s Jones."

"Jones," Dean echoed, committing it to memory. "Rosalie Jones, that it, Sammy? She our witch? Sam!"

Sam was gone again, still and unresponsive on the bed, eyes closed as if they'd never opened.

"Okay." Dean let out a shaking breath, patting Sam's face absently before backing off. "Okay. Good work, Sammy. Rosalie Jones. I can work with that."

Or Bobby could. Sam was usually the go-to guy for hacking into people's records. Dean could do it too, if he had to, but Bobby would probably be faster and Dean didn't want to waste time. This could be the answer.

XXX

Dean was jolted from sleep by his cell phone vibrating in his hand, _Smoke on the Water_ trilling out, high-pitched and electronic. He bolted upright, casting a glance at Sam – still out, of course – as he flipped it open.

"Bobby," he said, without bothering to check the Caller ID. The only people who called him were Bobby and Sam, and Sam wasn't exactly able to come to the phone right now. "What you got for me?"

"Well, I found her," Bobby's gruff tones informed him. "You sure Sam said Rosalie Jones? She don't seem like a witch to me."

"That's what he said, Bobby, so what'd you find out?" Dean sat down at the table, pulling the motel's complimentary stationary closer and picking up a pen, poised to jot down the details.

"Well, there is a Rosalie Jones in your town, kid got that right. She's a couple of months younger than Sam, no siblings, parents deceased, and currently a patient in Saint Margaret's Psychiatric Unit."

Dean's pen paused. That was unexpected. He dropped it on the table and leant back in his chair. "So what's wrong with her?"

"Paranoid Schizophrenic, apparently. Been in and out of there for a while now." Bobby paused. "Dean, if you're gonna try to interview her... you just shouldn't get your hopes up, ya hear? I don't know how reliable her information will be."

Dean ran a weary hand over his face. Okay, so he hadn't banked on the girl being coo coo for cocoa puffs, but - "She knows something, Bobby. Something about Sam. I've gotta find out what it is."

"You sure about that, Dean?" Bobby sounded doubtful. "You said Sam wasn't making much sense. Something about a Djinn and a warehouse, right?"

"He said her name, Bobby. He said he had to save her. So I don't know what's going on, what Djinns have to do with it." (And man, why did it have to be Djinn's? Like he needed the reminder of that perfect life he'd given up.) "Maybe... maybe it's something to do with Sam's visions, I don't know, but this girl's in trouble somehow, and so is Sam. She's the only lead I've got."

"All right, kid. I'll see if I can dig up anything else on her. You go ahead and do what you gotta do."

"Thanks, Bobby. I owe you one." Gees, more than one. By rights, he and Sam should have been Bobby's personal slaves by now.

"You boys owe me plenty," Bobby concurred unknowingly and good naturedly. "I'll call you back if I find something."

Dean set his phone down on the table, chewing on his lip as he stared at Sam thoughtfully. The laptop beeped a moment later, signalling the arrival of a new email. Dean opened it up and followed the attachment. Painfully slowly – damn motels and their crappy wireless – a photograph of a young girl loaded.

"Go Bobby," Dean muttered, staring at the face of Rosalie Jones, suspected witch or witness or something. Shoulder length brown hair and dark eyes; she was pretty. More Sam's type than his, though Sam was flexible that way. Dean preferred blondes. And red heads. God, he loved red heads. Anyway...

So she was a girl in a mental ward. A mental ward in the same hospital Gareth _I survived a werewolf attack and all I got was a crappy hospital stay_ Hanks had been admitted to, where he and Sam had interviewed him the day before Sam had failed to wake up.

So they had been near her but hadn't actually met her. So what did she have to do with this?

XXX

It wasn't as difficult as Dean thought it would be to gain permission for a visit to the loony bin. A story about Rosalie being his half-cousin and a sympathetic nurse had made it almost worryingly simple.

"Oh, she'll be so happy to see you. She never gets visitors, poor girl," Sheila from reception had said, still blushing from Dean's shameless (and calculated) flirting. She was at least twice his age but Dean had long ago figured out how to use his charm to make any woman in a twenty foot radius melt.

Dean had smiled appropriately and fed the woman a story from their imagined childhood and continued on to explain that they'd lost touch and he'd only recently heard that she'd been admitted here, while thinking that they really should have better security.

Sheila clucked compassionately. "Did someone contact you about her suicide attempt?"

It was lucky that years of training had taught Dean to roll with the punches, almost like second nature, and he managed to keep his surprise under wraps. It must have been a recent attempt, as Bobby's hacking skills hadn't uncovered anything about it.

A few more meaningless exchanges about how sad it was to see someone so young so ill, another dash of charm and he was in. Granted access to her room even, where Rosalie was apparently on some form of lock down for the next few hours, which had the added bonus of privacy.

Rosalie only barely resembled the photo Bobby had sent him. It was obviously a few years old and the time between then and now had been rough. There was no smile on the girl's face and she was thin almost to the point of being bony. Her hair looked unwashed and she carried her illness in her eyes.

Dean thanked the nurse who had led him to Rosalie's room, a slightly rounded red-headed woman who, under different circumstances, he may have made a move on (_those red heads_), and sat down carefully on the edge of Rosalie's bed. Rosalie herself was sitting at a desk on the far side of the small room, drawing. She hadn't looked up when he came in.

Dean waited until the nurse had left before he addressed the girl.

"Hi, Rosalie," he said, keeping it simple. He'd work his way up.

"Hi," Rosalie said back, not taking her eyes from her drawing.

She didn't ask who he was, like Dean expected, but, well, she was nuts, right? So this probably wouldn't play out by the book.

"What are you drawing?" he asked, his own eyes on Rosalie's bandaged wrists. Drawing must have hurt but she didn't show any outward signs that it bothered her.

Rosalie sat, quiet and fixated.

Okay, so leading her into conversation might not work so well. Dean cleared his throat. It sounded loud over the faint squeaking of the pen. "So, I'm here because I think you might know someone. He's my brother, uh -"

He stopped as Rosalie raised her head. She eyed him steadily, with her bloodless skin and haunted gaze. She put her pen down, slowly and deliberately.

"Is this about Sam?" she asked finally.

Dean felt something jolt in his stomach. So she did know something.

"You know Sam?" he asked evenly, not letting his anticipation show in his voice. He didn't want to scare her off, and there was still a slim possibility that she was a witch. Either way, he needed to tread carefully.

"You're not real," Rosalie said abruptly, flinging the words at him like an accusation. She turned back to her picture.

Dean debated his next step. "Why do you think that?" he asked eventually.

Rosalie twirled her pen in her fingers, looking from her paper to him, a quick nervous glance, before settling on her paper again. "'cause Sam's not real so you're not real. I'm not supposed to talk to you. I'm supposed to be getting better." She huffed out a half-hysterical laugh. "I was almost getting my life back." She smiled ruefully, shaking her head.

Dean leant in closer, resisting the urge to shake the answers out of her. Sam had always been better at this sort of thing. "Rosalie," he said clearly, "Do you know where Sam is?"

Rosalie's smile dropped. She looked up at him wretchedly and fisted a hand in the ends of her hair.

"Sam's in my head," she whispered. "I don't know how to get him out."

**TBC**

**A/N: So did ya see it coming? I'm feeling clever because Rosalie said that Sam was in her head right from chapter one XD I'd love to hear what you all think of this. Go on, click the review button.**


	7. Chapter 7

**There's No Such Thing As Monsters**

**A/N: I'm sorry about the lateness of this chapter. Both my kids, and my husband, caught a stomach bug that left us all rather frazzled. I'm still struggling to catch up with everything. But here it is. I hope you all enjoy, and if you have the time, I would love to know what you think. (Also, I kind of rushed through my proof-reading of this, so if there are any glaring mistakes, please feel free to tell me so I can fix them.)**

**Chapter Seven**

Sam lay on his bed, staring at the ceiling as he absently scratched at the bandages on his wrists. Apparently he'd lost the privilege of going to the recreation room, for today at least, but even if he was allowed maybe he would have chosen to stay in his room anyway. His wrists ached and he felt sluggish, and he didn't know what to do next.

It wasn't a Djinn. For a few all too brief moments he'd been in a motel room, not a warehouse, and Dean – the real Dean – had been leaning over him, saying something. Sam couldn't remember what his brother had said or whether he'd said anything in return, and he hadn't been able to see straight. It was like his eyes and mouth were foreign objects, not tuned to the right settings. Like he was out of practice at being him.

Then the next thing he was aware of was hurried voices and lights swinging past above him, neat rows of stitches on the inside of his wrists and Dean was gone like he'd never been. Sam tried to think. If he could figure out what Dean had said maybe there would be an answer in there, instructions, explanations, anything, but it was like trying to remember a dream, so real one moment but faded and disjointed the next.

He could almost put the glimpse of his old life down to delirious hallucinations from blood loss but it wasn't. He knew it wasn't. Muffled and ephemeral as those few moments in the motel room were, they had made more sense than the last few days, had struck something deep inside him, beyond the scope of rational thinking, that murmured 'real' far more truthfully than anything else he'd seen.

Sam just had to figure out how to get back there.

Footsteps hesitated outside his room, followed by the soft slide of a key-card in the lock. Sam looked away from the ceiling as the door opened and revealed Dean. Not his Dean because this Dean looked scared and small and guilty and his Dean never looked like that, except when Dad died.

Sam looked back at the ceiling.

He heard Dean shuffling closer, the barely there creak of the door as it closed. There was no click so it must have been left ajar.

"Hey, Sammy," Dean said quietly.

"Hi," Sam answered dully. No need to be rude, right? Even if he wasn't real.

Dean hovered at the end of the bed. It kind of astounded Sam that he would sense this Dean's presence as well as he could the real one. In the real world, they were both trained to wake from the slightest noise but had long since learned to sleep through each other's early morning racket. Sam would rise to half-awareness if Dean was moving around the motel room, then sink back into sleep when his senses assured him that it was his brother, without ever opening his eyes or really waking fully. He knew it was the same for Dean when the situation was reversed. He felt an unexpected surge of resentment at this pretend Dean for trying to take his real brother's place.

Fake Dean cleared his throat. "So, uh... Mum's gonna come in tomorrow and, uh, I think Dad the day after that. Your, um, your doctor said we shouldn't all come at once 'cause it might overwhelm you or something."

Sam kind of laughed at that. "I'm fine," he said, although actually, the thought of seeing his fake family all together was a little overwhelming.

"Sam..." Dean awkwardly perched himself on the edge of Sam's bed. His eyes kept flickering to the bandages, then jerking away. "You're not fine. God, Sammy, you're not fine at all. Look what you've done to yourself." Dean bit his lip anxiously. Sam had to admit that he had the real Dean's mannerisms perfect, the same tone of voice and nervous habits. "Mum's a wreck, Sammy, and Dad... even Dad..."

Sam rolled his eyes. He was tired and in pain and he didn't want to do this, didn't want to talk to this reflection of Dean. He wanted to go to sleep and wake up where he was supposed to be. "You're not real. Mum and Dad aren't real. They're dead so save the guilt trip, okay?"

Dean looked away but Sam saw his face crumple. Really, it wasn't fair that even a pretend Dean managed to make him feel bad, for something that he'd done that wasn't even real (even if it felt real. Why the hell did it feel real?)

"Damn it, Sam," Dean said, but there was no heat to his words. "All this... hunting monsters and demons killing everyone... Come on, Sammy, you're like a frikkin' genius, why can't you see that that doesn't make sense? You've seen Mum, she's not dead. Dad's not dead. Think about it, man. Monsters and demons, they're not real."

"No, this isn't real!" Sam sat up, slamming a fist down on the mattress, feeling the stitches jolt and tug. As drained as he felt, the anger overrode it and Dean actually stepped back. The real Dean would never step back. "Damn it, _this_ isn't real! I wish it was, okay? This would be better. You think I want Mum and Dad to be dead? To be hunted by this demon that kills everyone I care about? I wish it was all in my head! But it's not. It's not."

Dean rubbed at his jaw anxiously and there was an interminably long moment of silence, before he let out a sigh. "Jesus, Sammy," he said quietly. "I'm trying here, I really am. But I don't know how to help you."

Sam shook his head. This Dean couldn't help him. "Don't... just don't bother, Dean. There's nothing you can do."

He lay back down and turned his gaze to the ceiling.

XXX

"It's not a Djinn," Sam said as he pulled up a chair next to Rosalie.

Rosalie nodded vaguely, drawing as usual. Sam didn't think he'd ever actually seen her without a pen or a bit of paper in hand.

"I saw your brother yesterday," she said, using her pen to scratch at her wrist.

"Yeah, me too," Sam said dismissively. "He's not going to help us."

Rosalie frowned. "He said he'd help me."

Sam paused, his train of thought about other possible explanations derailing. "You talked to him?"

"He came into my room," Rosalie said factually, as though other patients family members dropping into her room was a usual occurrence. "He was pretending to be my cousin."

Sam felt something jolt inside him. Could it... was the real Dean here? It definitely sounded like a cover story to gain access to the ward, but why would Dean talk to Rosalie and not him? None of this made any sense.

He'd been sure that it was a Djinn. It was the only logical conclusion that he could think of. But that wasn't right. He hadn't woken up, shackled in an old warehouse or factory, there was no tattooed monster draining the life out of him. There was a motel room and Dean. And Rosalie, she fit somehow. There answers were in figuring her out.

Sam put a hand on her wrist, halting her pens progression. "Rosalie, what did my brother say to you?"

Rosalie looked down at his hand on her arm, then her picture of... someone lying on a bed, maybe? She can't have been working on it for long, it was only outlines. Then back again.

"He was looking for you, but you're not real," she said finally. "He's not real. He's not my cousin either."

"What did you tell him?" Sam asked, leaning forward but trying hard to stay calm. He needed to know what Dean was doing, what Dean knew, whether Dean had figured out hot to get him away from this place.

Rosalie rolled her eyes. "I told him that you're not real and he said you were, but he would say that because he's not real either, not if he knows you." She kind of laughed. "My imaginary friends have their own imaginary friends. That's funny." She shook her head. "My meds aren't working. They used to work but then you came."

Sam couldn't help but tighten his grip on her arm. "Rosalie, this is serious. I'm real and I'm not supposed to be here. I need to know what Dean said to you."

Rosalie pulled her arm out of his grasp and went back to drawing intently, head bent over her picture.

"Rosalie..."

She slammed her pen down. "Damn it, I'm not supposed to talk to you!" she hissed. "After what you made me do. I'm not supposed to listen. You're a... a symptom, okay? That's all."

This whole thing kind of reminded Sam of the conversations he used to have with Jess and Brady. College was good for contemplating existence, he'd found, and Brady especially had enjoyed teasing him with 'What if?' questions. Things like, what would you do if you found out that nothing you did was the product of your own choices? What would you do if your whole life was just the dream of a higher being?

Sam remembered saying that sometimes he wished it was (because then he wouldn't have to take responsibility for all the times he'd messed up). But Rosalie wasn't a higher being. She was a girl in a psychiatric ward and Sam wasn't a hallucination.

"What did I...?" he frowned at Rosalie's words. What did he make her do? But he changed track quickly. Got to stay focussed. _God, his head hurt_. Maybe it was a side effect of the drugs they kept giving him. "Rosalie, please. Just tell me what he said."

Rosalie huffed irritably. She wouldn't look at him now and when she spoke it almost seemed as if she was talking to her drawing. "He said he was going to get me out, okay? I guess he meant you too, seeing as you're in my head."

"Rosalie, I'm not in your head." Sam rubbed his temple in frustration.

Rosalie laughed to herself. "Even my hallucinations think I'm crazy."

Sam sighed. So maybe he couldn't convince her that he was real. Maybe it didn't matter. "Did he say when he was going to get you out?"

Rosalie shrugged.

Maybe Sam would just have to wait.

XXX

Rosalie was going to be an artist.

That had been her plan, at least, while she was in school, surrounded by the other girls and boys who'd blabbered on about being actresses and sports stars or going into their family's business when they grew up. Rosalie had listened from her space, always a few feet and a few wrong moves away from the rest of her peers, and wondered if things were supposed to magically get better when you grew up and turned into a film star or whatever. It was easy to decide that she was going to be an artist, because then all she'd have to do was draw and she wouldn't have to talk to anyone.

She imagined rooms full of paper and paints and proper sketching pencils. She could wear floaty clothes and always have dabs of paint on her face and she'd be thought of as mystical and eccentric and not just that weird girl in the corner.

Then she turned seventeen and her plans went awry when she drank a little too much and smoked a bit too much pot, maybe talked back a bit and took the whole teenage rebellion thing a tad too far, and her Aunty threw her out of the house.

She stayed at her boyfriend's house at first, a guy five years older than her, with a car and a tiny flat on the other side of town, but he'd gotten bored of her pretty quickly when she became a full-time girlfriend and had announced their relationships demise by putting her bag of clothes and older of paintings out on the doorstep with a note that said, 'Sorry, Rose, it just ain't working out.'

Rosalie hated being called Rose.

She didn't have many friends and she outstayed her welcome on the couches of those she had managed to find. People thought she was strange because she didn't talk much and she watched.

She watched people in the park and at the library, friends chatting and couples kissing. She watched children and animals and men in suits and women drinking coffee, and wondered what it was about life that they all understood and she couldn't wrap her head around. What was she doing wrong?

Later, Rosalie watched the pictures in her head and talked to people that no one else could see and she drew until her pens ran dry and then she would steal more from the little corner shop that didn't ask for ID when she wanted cigarettes or wine. Sometimes she drew with ash.

She was on the streets before she's even realized that there was no one left for her to turn to, and committed shortly after by people who seemed nice and said that they cared but later she figured out that it was just their job that make them say that.

She'd been in and out since then, mostly in because she didn't like the way her pills made it hard for her to see the pictures in her head, and then one time when she was out, the people kept yelling and yelling and all her pens were dry and she didn't know how to make them stop so she found a lot of liquor and a little alleyway and drank until they sighed and went away and then she went away and she thought she was happy about that until she woke up back at the hospital and figured out that going away was the same as dying.

Rosalie didn't want to die. She wanted to be normal.

She'd been doing well in the unit, this time around. She took her medication when the nurses told her to and the people she'd been talking to went back to doing whatever it was they did when they weren't busy being delusions. Doctor Harper had even switched her pills so they didn't make it so hard for her to draw, and she was starting to think that maybe she'd be let out soon and this time she wouldn't mess everything up.

Then the man came, and shortly after him, Sam.

She didn't tell anyone about the man. She drew pictures of Sam and his brother and their car, and placed them all carefully on top of her drawing of the man. She didn't like the way his yellow eyes stared at her.

XXX

Rosalie didn't bother to look up when she heard the familiar swipe of a key-card outside her door – she'd learnt how to keep her eyes to herself because people were less likely to think you were crazy if you didn't look at things that weren't there – but she did wonder.

She'd already taken her medication, right on schedule, with no fuss because look where that got her last time (That was Sam's fault anyway). It must have been late because the room lights were out and had been for a while. When the door opened she saw that the hallway lights were out too, which was odd. The hall lights were never turned off.

Someone was screaming down the hall, which wasn't unusual, and briefly Rosalie wondered what she'd done that was so bad that she had to live in a place where screams were more normal than lights going out, then she forgot about that when the man who said he was her cousin but was actually Sam's brother, who was actually a figment of her imagination slipped into her room.

Apparently he was also a nurse because he'd lost the jeans and leather jacket he'd worn when she last saw him and was now dressed in light purple scrubs. Something inside Rosalie wanted to laugh and, though Sam was gone wherever he went when she was in charge, it was like his leftover essence was murmuring that Dean would never wear purple, but she just stared.

"Hey, Rosalie," he said, taking a small step forward. He was crouched kind of low, leaning a little away from her. Rosalie had been in enough nut wards to recognise someone who was afraid she might suddenly turn and bite him.

An echo of Sam muttered that often things did turn and bit them.

"You remember me?" Dean asked. Dean, Sam's brother, but Sam wasn't real. But none of the voices had ever been this tangible before.

Rosalie nodded. She sat up and fisted her hands in the sheets. He wasn't real. Not real.

Dean glanced back at the door quickly, head cocked as if he was listening intently. "You wanna get out of here?"

Rosalie chewed her lip. She wasn't supposed to do what they said. She wasn't supposed to listen because they made her do crazy things like slit her wrists to get away from make-believe monsters, but Sam was in her head and Dean said he would get him out and at worst, wouldn't she just wake up back in the ward? Hallucinations never got her anywhere.

"You gonna fix me?" she asked cautiously.

Dean hesitated. Of course, he was here for Sam, not really for her.

"I'm going to help you," he rephrased her words carefully, which really meant that he was going to help Sam, but if he could just get Sam out of her head...

"Okay." She nodded, clambering up from the bed.

Dean looked relieved, deeply so, as though he had expected her to put up more of a fight. "Okay, good." He stepped back and glanced out into the hallway. "Now, I need you to do exactly what I say, and don't make a sound, okay? You gotta be quiet.

Rosalie nodded. She was good at being quiet.

She followed Dean from the room and down the hallway, copying the way he stuck close to the wall, stepping softly. Rosalie's bare feet were silent on the floor. The screams had died down and a murmur of voices tripped along behind them. She thought they came from Kristina's room, near the end of the corridor. Kristina liked screaming, liked having all the nurses rush to her aide. Rosalie didn't understand that. She only wanted to be left alone.

They got to the rec room, eerie in it's darkness – Rosalie had never liked shadows. They were nearly at the door when the _swish _of the ranch slider that led out to the smoking area had Dean's hand clamping down on her wrist.

Dean tugged and Rosalie followed, an awkward half-dive behind the nurses station, with only the barest thud as they hit the floor. Dean's hand moved to her back and pushed lightly, carrying on their roll until they were both crammed into the space under the desk. She felt like a monster waiting to leap out at someone unsuspecting, or a child playing hide and seek. She was almost sitting in Dean's lap, sharing his body heat, his mouth close to her ear.

"Shh," he breathed, no more than the slightest breeze.

Rosalie held her breath. Sam stirred somewhere beneath the surface but she squeezed her eyes shut and clamped him down as hard as she could.

She listened to Dean's heart beating, a lot calmer than she imagined hers was, as footsteps laced with second-hand smoke approached the desk. They wandered off to the side and she heard a switch being flicked a few times experimentally. There was a long pause, filled with the steady beating in Dean's chest (Were hallucinations supposed to have heartbeats? Or was it kind of comforting that her hallucinations weren't zombies?), then the footsteps meandered down the hallway they'd just left.

"What's wrong with the lights?" She heard a male voice question, and she was trying to figure out whether it was Michael or Tom when Dean levered them both out from under the desk and, keeping a hand on her head so that she was crouched as low as he was, pushed her towards the exit.

The swipe of the card sounded like a hiss and Rosalie cringed away but Dean's hand was tight around her forearm and when he pushed the door open he pushed her with it.

Rosalie thought that stepping out that door should feel important. A moment of achievement and triumph and freedom that should sing to her in a voice she liked to pretend was her mothers, bit she was over the threshold before the moment really registered and all that came with it was the sound of their scrubs swishing and their footsteps muffled by carpet as they ran.

**TBC**


	8. Chapter 8

**There's No Such Thing As Monsters**

**A/N: *sigh* I tried to get this up earlier but... yeah, didn't happen. I won't bore you with excuses. If you see any ridiculous errors please tell me as I kind of rushed through this chapter in an attempt to finish it before my wee girl wakes up from her nap. Hopefully there isn't any ridiculousness though. Enjoy!**

**Chapter Eight**

Sam woke knowing that something had changed.

The smells of the hospital were gone, replaced by stale cigarette smoke and mildew. Over-starched sheets were now worn and the mattress he was lying on was lumpy and one spring in particular was getting well acquainted with the small of his back.

It felt like _home_.

Sam opened his eyes. He'd never been so happy to see the water-marked ceiling of a motel room before because it could only mean one thing: Dean got him out.

Breathing out a sigh of relief, revelling in the feel of the lumpy, springy bed that somehow seemed more comfortable than the one at the hospital, Sam turned his head to the right, expecting to see Dean – his one constant when he woke up in places other than where he went to sleep – probably sitting on his bed, watching Sam in full-on big brother mode, not willing to rest until he'd heard from Sam himself that he was okay.

Instead, Sam was greeted by the sight of the motel room door, small kitchenette off to the side. He frowned. It was the same room they'd been in before he woke up in the ward, he recognised the off-putting orangey-brown wallpaper, so... Okay, so he was in Dean's bed for some reason, and Dean must be...

Sam turned his gaze to the motel room in general, skimmed past the TV, sitting lifeless on a tiny cabinet that looked as though it was about to give out under the weight of the set, and the small round table littered with takeaway coffee cups and bits of paper, laptop standing to attention amongst it all. His eyes lingered on the half-open door to the bathroom before he noticed that there was someone sleeping in the bed next to him.

Not someone. Him. Sam. He was sleeping in the bed.

Sam sat bolt upright, headache spiking as he scrambled off the bed and backed into the kitchen. It was... he was... Sam looked down at himself. It was definitely him, still dressed in hospital scrubs, but then who... what?

The motel room door creaked open behind him. Sam spun, panicked, and stumbled. Dean's hand closed over his shoulder.

"Hey, whoa," Dean said, "You okay?"

The hand not on Sam's shoulder held a take-out bag. Sam's eyes darted from it, to Dean, to... him on the bed, and back. Why wasn't Dean freaking out about there being two of him? Or why wasn't Dean at least jumping to explain why there were two of him?

"I... what's going on? Why- What-?"

"Hey, just calm down, okay?" Dean was speaking the way he did to victims, the lucky ones that escaped the monsters. All calm and authoritative, the voice that said, hey, listen to me and you'll be all right. He tossed the take out bag onto his bed so he could bring his hand up and hold onto both of Sam's shoulders. "You remember who I am?"

Sam let out a small laugh (and if it was a tad hysterical he was totally entitled) at the ridiculous question. "Of course I know who you are. Don't mess around with me, Dean. God, just... what's going on? Why is...?" He threw a helpless gesture towards the Sam on the bed.

Dean frowned, eyes turning quizzical. "Rosalie?" he asked.

Sam let out a stunned breath, stomach dropping. "What? Why are you calling me Rosalie?"

Dean pulled back but his hands tightened on Sam's shoulders. "Sam?"

Sam tried to turn to look at the other him but Dean shook him, forcing him to keep his gaze forward.

"Sammy? That you in there? Come on, answer me!"

"...in where?" Sam asked finally, a little faint. He didn't understand. He didn't understand at all, then Dean was pulling him into a hug, which freaked him out even more, and he didn't fit right. Not the way he usually did, not that hugs were that usual between them, head tucked under Dean's chin, almost smothered by his brother, and was he smaller than he should be or was Dean bigger?

"I don't understand," Sam said into Dean's jacket.

Dean pulled back, taking the 'you scared the shit out of me' look off of his face and ran his eyes over Sam from head to toe. "Have you looked in a mirror lately?"

Sam looked down at himself in consternation. "What d'you mean?"

Dean's eyebrows quirked warily. "Don't freak out, okay? I'm gonna fix this." He steered Sam towards the bathroom.

Sam let himself be guided along. "Fix what? Dean, I was in this psych ward. They said I was schizophrenic, and you came and-"

He broke off as he got a look at himself in the mirror.

That... that wasn't him. That was...

Sam gripped the sink tightly, stitches stinging his wrists, a vague wave of vertigo washing over him as he leant closer to the girl who stared back, face etched with shock. "Rosalie."

Dean's mirror-image nodded. "What ever's been going on in that freaky head of yours... it wasn't actually your freaky head. _Your_ freaky head, and the rest of you, has been snoozing on that bed for the last week."

Sam let out a shaky breath, tearing his gaze away from the mirror to look down at himself. Still looked like him, but when he looked back it was Rosalie he saw. How did that make sense? How did any of this make sense?

"God," he said. "God, I thought she was just crazy. I mean... Jesus, she was telling me all along. She kept saying I was in her head but I thought..."

Dean frowned. "What, you talked to her like she was a separate person? You weren't just, like, a voice in her head?"

Sam turned away from Rosalie's face, leaning against the sink as he addressed Dean. "No, I was really there... I thought I was really there. I'm in her head? How does that work?"

Dean raised his eyebrows. "You want me to try to figure out the logistics of this? No way, Sammy, that's more your department, don't you think? All I know is that you wouldn't wake up – still won't wake up technically – and you said something about Rosalie Jones so I found her, and now here we are."

Sam turned back to the mirror, mind racing. How was this even possible? And _why_?

"Sam" Dean's reflection was biting his lip, suddenly anxious. "Look, Sammy, I don't know how long you're gonna be running this show. I mean, last night when I busted Rosalie out, I busted _Rosalie _out. You remember any of that?"

Sam shook his head slowly, but, "Were you wearing purple?"

Dean's eyebrows threatened to disappear into his hairline. "Right, well, whatever. Tear yourself away from that mirror, stop staring at Rosalie's tits-"

"I'm not!" Sam exclaimed indignantly, spinning around. Dean just held up a hand and continued.

"-and come tell me everything you know, so that I'm not just working on what schizophrenia girl tells me."

"You shouldn't call her that," Sam frowned as he followed Dean out of the bathroom. "It's not her fault she has a mental illness. You know-"

"Can the lecture, Sam. There's some sort of time limit here."

Despite Dean's words, Sam lingered by the bed he was currently sleeping on (and wasn't that a weird sentence?). Looking at himself through someone else's eyes was... creepy and wrong and kind of made him want to hyperventilate. He was so still, breathing evenly but without any other sign of life. He looked like he needed a long shower and a decent meal.

"I've just been... like that, since...?"

Dean stepped up beside him and looked at Sam's empty body too. Sam glanced up at him (_up_ at him) and caught a glimpse of days worth of fear and worry, before Dean turned away, a hand on Sam's arm pulling him away too.

"Yeah," Dean said, and Sam could hear the forced lightness in his tone, "And just so ya know, if you're still running the show next time you piss yourself, you're cleaning it up."

Sam felt himself turn red as Dean pushed him down in one of the chairs. He stared studiously at the table and did his best to explain to Dean what he'd been doing this last week.

Dean scoffed at his other self claiming that monsters were make believe, wondering aloud why Sam would have seen a version of him that clearly hadn't been here at all, scowled at the story of the nurses tying Sam down to drug him, then went quiet at the recount of Mary's visit. But it was the failed attempt at escaping a non-existent Djinn that really got him mad.

"Jesus, Sam, what the hell were you thinking?" Dean ranted as he paced alongside the table.

The severity of his miscalculation was only just setting in. "I know... God, I could have killed Rosalie." Sam didn't want to think about the girl sitting in her room slicing her wrists because Sam, the voice in her head, had told her that it was the only way to escape the ward. But he hadn't _known_. He fiddled anxiously with the bandages around his wrists. (Why was he seeing his wrists when they should be Rosalie's? God, Rosalie. He almost killed her. And maybe himself. Would it have worked like that?)

Dean's features softened at Sam's words, the righteous anger fading. He sat back down at the table.

"Not your fault, Sam," he said shortly. "Not saying it was one of your more brilliant plans – it was probably one of your worst. Seriously, slitting your wrists? Fuck, Sammy – but I guess a Djinn was kind of the logical conclusion... and you were trying to save Rosalie, right? You couldn't have known that she was you or... whatever. Damn, this whole thing is turning my brain to mush."

"Yeah," Sam agreed aimlessly, still staring at the bandages.

"Aw, Christ. Listen carefully, I'll speak slowly so you can follow; It wasn't. Your. Fault," Dean enunciated exaggeratedly. "Anyway, I'm guessing that's when you woke up here and rambled something about Djinn's and warehouses, right?"

"I guess. So?"

Dean rolled his eyes. "_So_ you were also going on about how you had to save Rosalie. Who knows how long it would've taken me to figure it out if you hadn't given me her name? So something good came of it, okay? 'Cause now we can get you out of her head... somehow, and everything will be fine."

Sam grudgingly set his guilt aside for the moment. "What I don't get is why the hell am I in her head anyway? _How_ am I in her head? It doesn't... it's not..." Sam trailed off, bring a hand to his head as pain roared suddenly behind his eyes.

"Sam?"

Sam shook his head slightly, blinking. "Yeah, I'm... _whoa_."

The world tilted. He heard Dean say his name again, alarmed now, but he couldn't answer. Blood was rushing past his ears and the motel room shrunk as if it were folding itself up, compacting itself into his mind, then everything went black.

XXX

"Sam! Come on, Sammy, wake up." Dean crouched over Sam's – Rosalie's – fallen form, suddenly sprawled on the motel room carpet.

It only took a moment before Sam's – Rosalie's – damn it, this was confusing – eyelids flickered, then opened and peered up at him in confusion.

"Dean?" Rosalie asked, blinking. "Where am I?"

It was Rosalie too, Dean would tell by just the slightest change in inflections, the loss of a certain glimmer in her eyes. He tried not to let his disappointment show on his face.

"Hey, don't worry, you're okay. You're at my motel, remember?"

Rosalie stared at him like he was speaking a foreign language, then sat up, looking around. "Oh God," she muttered. "Oh God, it's real. It's real, right? I've never... I never left the ward before, like, in my head, you know? I was always at the ward."

"Yeah, it's real all right," Dean confirmed as he helped her to her feet, mindful of her wrists.

Immediately she let out a small shriek that had Dean reaching for his gun, but she was looking at Sam. Sam's body. Whatever.

"Oh my God," she said, stepping closer. "It's him. It's Sam. He's real."

Dean ran a hand over his face. When they'd arrived at the motel it had been the early hours of the morning and Rosalie had crashed out immediately. He hadn't bothered turning the lights on.

"Yeah, he's real too. And he's in your head so you've gotta... like, put him back in his body somehow, okay?"

"I don't..." Rosalie shook her head. "I don't understand."

"Yeah, neither do I," Dean admitted reluctantly.

Rosalie swung around to face him again. "What about the other one? Is he real too? Do you know him?"

"Know who?" Dean asked, thinking that maybe he didn't really want to know. How many people could she have crammed in there?

"The man." Rosalie looked at him with wide eyes. "The man with the yellow eyes."

TBC


	9. Chapter 9

**There's No Such Thing As Monsters**

**A/N: I know, I know, this is shockingly late. My little girl has been teething terribly and sleep has been rather lacking for everyone lately, poor wee thing. But there's only one chapter left after this one and hopefully I won't be so zombiefied this week.**

**Okay, so I'm uploading this again because something weird is going on... Apologies if I somehow make a computer-illiterate idiot out of myself and clog up your inboxes with this...  
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**Chapter Nine**

Missouri was a busy woman.

She had her customers, the ones who never actually came for the truth, who just wanted to be reassured about their numerous worries, the teenagers all awed and giggly, housewives with nothing better to do, the bereaved looking for closure, and the occasional sceptic who really just wanted to prove her wrong.

She had hunters in and out, the veterans who'd spent years hunting the things that dwelled just out of sight of civilians, and the fresh ones, suddenly scarred by evil and thrumming with revenge, like John Winchester when he first appeared on her doorstep with two small children in tow, all looking for the same thing: Answers.

She performed house cleaning's, personal cleansing's, made little protection bags and sometimes people even asked if she could talk to their pets.

Missouri knew a lot of things. She knew a lot more than she should and a lot more than she sometimes wanted and she could never really explain how she knew some of the things she did.

The closest she could get to an example was vibrations. Ripples maybe. Every act or emotion resonated like a stone in a pond, like echoes skimming across distance and time. Everyone wore their own unsettled pool, their pain and joy, the rocks life had thrown at them, and the stronger the person's psychic abilities, the larger the stone, the stronger the vibrations.

Sam was like a bolder tossed in the ocean. The ripples were almost waves. They carried far and were impossible to ignore.

Trouble was brewing around that boy. He bore the same scars as the house he had lived in as a baby. Evil had touched him, in some way, and the trouble went beyond the mess he had found himself in now. Something big, far bigger than Missouri's abilities could comprehend, was coming and she would be wise to stay out of it.

It would probably be wise to stay out of his life altogether actually, but the boy needed help and Missouri wasn't about to let something like the future get in the way of the present.

Dean's face when he answered her knock at the door of his motel room was priceless. That boy wasn't often left speechless and Missouri took a moment to smile inwardly at the novelty of it, before she got down to business.

"Hello, Dean. I'm in room seven. You can make yourself useful by bringing my bags in." She held up her room and car keys. Dean took them automatically, still staring at her in disbelief. "You can just pop them on the bed," she prompted, when it seemed as though Dean was just going to stand there.

There was a beat of silence before the boy found his tongue.

"How're you...?"

Missouri raised an eyebrow. "Shoo," she said, waving a hand towards her car. "And why don't you pick up some coffee while you're at it. The diner across the road is good and there's a waitress there who's dying to see you again. Veronica, isn't it? She thinks you're mysterious. Don't stay chatting too long, mind. I'll probably need you to fill in some blanks."

Dean seemed to be regaining some of his composure. "You need _me_ to fill in the blanks?" he muttered incredulously, but he fisted the keys and when Missouri stepped aside to let him pass, he went.

Missouri chuckled to herself before stepping into the room, closing the door behind her.

The girl sat on the bed not occupied by Sam. Missouri cast a disturbed glance at the youngest Winchester's sleeping form before heading over to the girl. She had her eyes shut, one hand rubbing her temple.

"Rosalie, isn't it?" Missouri asked kindly. She frowned in sympathy. "Sam giving you a headache, honey? I bet he's causing quite a ruckus, huh."

Rosalie squinted up at her, confusion and pain making the air around them shiver. She didn't question Missouri's presence.

"I want him out," she muttered, eyes dropping back to the floor. "I want him out. I've been... been trying to _push_ but..."

Missouri lay a hand on the girl's arm, breathing in deep as she attempted to calm the vibrations. Oh but this child was lost, in her head as much as her life.

"Stop pushing," she ordered gently. "You won't be able to get him out that way."

Missouri nudged Rosalie until she was lying on the bed. "Rest. We'll have work to do when you wake."

She swept a soothing touch over the girl's forehead. Obediently, Rosalie closed her eyes and a moment later her breathing evened out into sleep.

Missouri looked from her to the room's other occupant and sighed. This was going to be a tough one.

Then she went to open the door for Dean, who was fumbling coffees and keys on the other side.

XXX

Dean was pacing. This was definitely a conversation that required pacing. And maybe whiskey. Yeah, whiskey would be great.

Missouri shot him a warning look. "Dean Winchester, I don't see how getting drunk is going to help your brother."

"Well what is?" Dean retorted in frustration. "Just... explain this to me again."

Missouri heaved a put-upon sigh. "I don't think I can explain it any clearer than I already have." She thought for a moment. "Okay, think of Rosalie like a black hole in space, but tuned to a specific frequency. Do you know what black holes do?"

Dean halted his pacing a glared. "Of course I know what black holes do. So... what the hell? She just... sucked Sam's soul out?"

"In a way," Missouri said calmly, like that wasn't a _huge fucking deal_. "It's like a merging."

"So she's not crazy? She's just psychic? What the hell kind of power is that?"

"I don't think it was the original purpose of her power," Missouri mused. "Maybe she was supposed to absorb other people's powers, grow stronger through it. She is psychic. She's also schizophrenic. Mental illness can do... interesting things to abilities. Her original gift may have been... lost in translation."

"Gift. Right." Dean scoffed. "That 'gift' ties her to a demon and it's... war or army or whatever."

He plunked down in the chair unoccupied by Missouri, hand reaching round to scruff the hairs at the back of his neck. "So, what? Sam's her split personality?"

"That's an interesting way to describe it bit I suppose it works," Missouri conceded.

Dean frowned. "Okay, but what I don't get is, why was Sam seeing me and Mum in the ward? That doesn't make sense." (Really, Dean? _That's_ the thing that doesn't make sense? How about _everything_?)

Missouri looked thoughtful. "A mind is a tricky thing. I can't give you definite answers but I'd guess that... remember that I said it was a merging? Mix Sam in with a mind suffering from schizophrenia and maybe it's logical that he was seeing things that weren't there."

Dean blinked. "You're saying that Sam's schizophrenic?" he asked defensively.

Missouri gave him a glare that literally made him wilt. How did she _do_ that? "Boy, are you deliberately being stupid? Your brother is not schizophrenic. _Rosalie_ is schizophrenic. I'm saying that there may have been some leakage from one mind to the other. So take that foul look off of your face, I'm not accusing Sam of anyth-"

"Whoa, okay, I get it." Dean flapped an arm in a vague sort of gesture at the two beds. "So how do we...?"

Missouri looked at the two sleeping figures pensively. "Now that is going to be the tricky part."

"Can't Rosalie just... I dunno, shove Sam back in his own body?" Dean asked hopefully (but without much actual hope 'cause seriously, as if it would be that simple).

Missouri shook her head. (Big surprise there. Not.) "No, that won't work. Remember the black hole? Everything's working to suck him in. She needs to create a shield, so to speak, or a dam. Something to keep the energy from drawing things in."

"A dam," Dean repeated, pinching the bridge of his nose. "Okay, so-"

Rosalie screamed.

Dean stood up so fast that his chair toppled over. It hit the carpet with a muffled thud that was drowned out by Rosalie's cries.

"Sonuvabitch!" he swore as he covered the space between the table and Rosalie's bed in three hurried steps.

The girl had her eyes clenched shut, hands tearing at her hair as she writhed and arched on the bed.

"Rosalie! Hey, calm down!" He tried to pull her hands away but she twisted, clenching tight, her wail unearthly and raising the hair on the back of Dean's neck. "Jesus, hey, stop screaming!"

Missouri unceremoniously shoved her way in, knocking Dean aside hard enough to make him stumble. He regained his balance in time to see Missouri clasp Rosalie's face in her hands and just like that, Rosalie fell silent, blinking up at Missouri and gasping for breath. It reminded him of Sam's nightmares after Jess, jolted awake by his touch.

"Damn it," Dean said, kind of breathlessly, into the silence. "We'll be lucky if the manager doesn't kick us out."

"Don't you worry about the manager," Missouri said distractedly, hands still on Rosalie's face. She was frowning. "I'll sort him out."

To Rosalie she said, "Go back to sleep, honey. It's okay now."

Rosalie blinked again in confusion, but rolled over and closed her eyes nonetheless.

"Jesus," Dean breathed, running both hands over his face, then up through his hair as Missouri joined him by the table. "As if we don't have enough to deal with without her having freak outs."

Missouri was staring at Rosalie though, her face creased with a deep concern. "I was afraid this would happen."

Dean felt his stomach drop. "What? What'd you do?"

"Sam was... struggling. I managed to calm him down but..." She shook her head. "The human body isn't designed to hold two souls at once. The longer they're together..."

"What?" Dean demanded, taking an unconscious step towards Sam. "The longer they're together _what_?"

"We need to separate them."

"Well, _duh_," Dean exclaimed, exasperated. "Missouri, what is it?"

"Rosalie's mind won't handle it much longer," Missouri said bluntly. "No human's mind could. There's only room for one person in there and, subconsciously, they both know it. They've started fighting."

"Fighting?" Dean raised his eyebrows in confusion, a vaguely hysterical panic trying to build up in his chest. "How can they fight? They're not, like, corporeal."

"Dean Winchester," Missouri said sharply, her eyes glittering as she turned to Dean. "If you're trying to say that the soul has no strength, you're sorely mistaken and I would have to assume that I've given you more credit than you deserve."

"Whoa." Dean held his hands up in surrender. "Sorry, I'm just... it's a lot to wrap my head around, okay?"

Missouri visibly composed herself. "No, I'm sorry." She raised a hand to rub at her temple. "It's Rosalie. The pull is... stronger than I expected. When this is over, I'm teaching Sam how to shield from this sort of thing."

The psychic sat down heavily, waving off Dean's attempt at assistance. "Oh, I'm fine. Just stretched. Don't worry about me." She seemed to refocus. "Now, more importantly; Sam and Rosalie. They can't exist together. They'll both push at each other until one of them wins."

Dean didn't want to ask but... "What happens to whoever loses?"

Missouri rubbed her eyes wearily. "That black hole I was talking about? Right now it can be reversed, but if we don't do it soon, the winner gets control of the body and the loser's just... gone."

XXX

Missouri and Rosalie were sitting on the floor facing each other, eyes closed and legs crossed. Missouri held Rosalie's hands in her own. _Guiding_, she had said.

Dean wished Missouri would _guide _a little faster. The two of them had been at it for hours now and it didn't look to Dean like they were getting anywhere.

He should probably find Rosalie some new clothes, he mused. The girl was still clad in hospital scrubs. And some fresh bandages for her wrists wouldn't go amiss.

Later though. Preferably after Sam was back in his own body. How long could it take to build a dam anyway?

Dean almost spilled the cup of water he was carefully dribbling into Sam's mouth when Rosalie suddenly bent over, tearing her hands from Missouri with a bitten off shriek.

"Jesus," he cursed, setting the cup quickly on the night-stand, ignoring the water that sloshed over his hand. "What now? Is it working?"

"They're fighting again," Missouri said, concern worming through the cracks of her calm. She reached a hand towards Rosalie but jerked back as she made contact, hissing.

"What?" Dean demanded but immediately forgot that he cared when Sam's body jerked on the bed, as though it had been shot through with electricity.

"Sam!" Dean bent back over him, searching desperately for some sign of awareness. "Sam, c'mon. Wake up, damn it!"

Rosalie curled into herself, whimpering.

"You won't find Sam in there," Missouri said over her shoulder, sounding grim as she eyed the girl on the floor. "Not yet."

XXX

**To Be Continued...**


	10. Chapter 10

**There's No Such Thing As Monsters**

**A/N: Okay, so apparently I'm an idiot who can't count. I'm also an idiot who didn't realize that I'd managed to make two Chapter Ten's, so my sincerest apologies to those who read the Chapter Ten I posted earlier which was in fact Chapter Eleven. Thanks to those who pointed my mistake out to me: Phx and Cappy712. I shall now go hide under a rock somewhere until I learn how not to be a complete dingbat. Happy reading!**

**Chapter Ten**

Rosalie was good at watching, and when she wasn't watching, she was good at listening.

What she was best at though, was being invisible. Not, like, now you see her, now you don't, disappear into thin air, what the hell, where'd she go invisible.

It was far more subtle than that. More of a... fading. Rosalie was best at being the background, so people barely noticed she was there at all.

At the ward she would listen to the nurses gossiping, about things they weren't supposed to talk about in front of patients. They had even talked about her once or twice, while she sat in the corner and pretended she didn't exist. That was how she first found out that Sam wasn't real, actually, because Julie told the other nurse that "Rosalie's got herself a new friend. I'll have to talk to the doctor about her medication..."

Except Sam was real.

And he was going to kill her.

That woman, the large dark-skinned woman, the psychic... Missouri, that was her name. She said Rosalie's head was a black hole, sucking sucking sucking...

Rosalie didn't like space. She didn't like the sky or stars or the moon or any of that poetic stuff. It's not so poetic when you're sleeping in doorways and it's raining it's pouring the old man is...

Wait, what was she thinking about?

_Stop, Rosalie. Missouri's going to fix this._

Rosalie shook her head, ignoring Dean's sharp look. _You don't know that. I'm broken. No one can fix what's wrong with me._

Sam was easier to hear now. At first he only spoke to her occasionally, though he was always there. There when she woke up, when she refused her meds, when they tied her down and when she cut her wrists open, but it was like he was in another room of the same house. Sometimes they bumped into each other and sometimes they didn't.

Rosalie laughed to herself._ I never asked for a flatmate, Sam._

The door to her room was open now and Sam was trying to get in, the same way she was trying to get out. It felt like the walls were closing in on her.

_ Missouri said it was you or me. We can't both live here and it was mine first._

She felt Sam's panic dance over her skin.

_Missouri said I have a gift._

_ It's not a gift. It's a curse. It's from a demon._

_ Maybe you're my gift._

She could feel it. Sam's... life force? It thrummed inside her brain, warm and... tight. It wanted to spread out, to fill up the rest of her mind. She wanted it to fill up the rest of her mind. Maybe it would fix her, weave itself around the broken and mismatched parts in her head and make them work like they should.

Maybe she could have a life that wasn't voices that weren't there and pills that didn't work. She could do her art and get her own place and be a person again.

_It doesn't work like that._ Sam was sounding desperate now. Rosalie shoved against the door and for a brief while Sam was nothing but static in her ears, fear that wasn't hers making her heart beat faster.

Then Sam shoved back.

_ Listen. You don't get a life if you give in. It just wants to use you._

Rosalie considered this, but she had heard Dean and Missouri talking. She wasn't stupid. If she didn't fight, Sam would win. Because she was broken. How would her mind compare?

Wouldn't it all come down to the same thing? She had never been in control. Maybe this was her only chance.

_ No. My brother-_

_ Screw your brother. He only wants to help you._

Sam fizzed out again. Her head pounded. Or Sam pounded inside her head as his room got smaller and Rosalie's expanded.

"Rosalie, don't do this."

Dean was in her face suddenly. "Sammy?"

Had she said that out loud? Had _Sam_ said that out loud?

"Huh?" she asked innocently as Sam bashed against the walls she was carefully holding him in.

Dean backed off a bit, uncertain. "Did you say something?" he asked.

Was that a hint of suspicion in his eyes, asking what he already knew?

"I don't..." Rosalie let her words trail off empty, schooled her face to a look of confusion.

If Missouri were here and not sleeping or focusing or whatever in her room, would she know? Would she know anyway?

Rosalie just wanted her thoughts to be hers.

The hope in Dean's expression faded. "Don't worry. Just..." He flapped his hand uselessly and returned to his spot at the table, doing whatever it was he'd been doing on that laptop.

_See, he wants you to win._

_No._ Sam's pleading vibrated in her veins. _He wants us both to win. He wants what you want; Me out of your head._

_ No, he doesn't!_

Sam fell back as the walls around him shrunk again.

_He just wants... he wants you. No one wants me. I can't make a dam. I tried. Missouri tried, and I can't do it._

_ You just need more time -_

_ There is no time!_

She knew it to be true. The walls were getting thinner and soon Sam would spill into her room and take over her thoughts, her blood and everything else. _I won't be me any more._

_ You won't be you if you do what you're thinking. Just... listen, okay? This is bigger than you think. There are kids like us all over the country. There's a demon..._

_ The yellow eyed man?_

_ Exactly._

_ How do I make him go away? He's like you, but different. He says he'll help me._

There was a long pause. Long enough that Rosalie wondered if Sam had gone away. Finally-

_ He's not going to help you, Rosalie. He's a demon. Demons lie._

_ So do people._

Sam didn't seem to have an answer to that. His reasoning was failing him and Rosalie could feel his ebb.

_ I'm sorry, Sam._

She was. Sorry, that is. She didn't want it to be this way. She wanted both of them to live, so she could so back to her art – not back to the unit where all they had was coloured pens and crayons, but out in the world where she could find paints and pencils and canvasses begging to be brought to life, and she wanted Sam to be able to go back to his brother and his body and whatever journey he was on.

But journeys end. They were locked in a fight to the death and she didn't want to be the one losing.

She could see it all in her head, all this untapped potential. Hers and Sam's and if she could reach it, open the door, flip the switch, let it in... then she could save herself.

_Missouri will find a way._ Sam was as close to yelling as either of them could get in this place. _Not like this. It doesn't have to be like this._

Rosalie shook her head. _You're wrong. This is the only way._

_ Rosalie, don't!_

_ Bye, Sam._

Rosalie flipped the switch.

XXX

Dean looked up as Rosalie stood. It was an automatic response to movement, drilled into him in his youth, unavoidable even though Rosalie was probably only headed to the bathroom. Although, it was possible she was about to have some kind of schizophrenic freak out, given the way she'd been giggling and murmuring to herself for the last half hour.

Rosalie didn't so anything though. She simply stood and stayed standing.

"Hey, are you alrigh-" he started to ask, but broke off, head whipping toward the door as it slammed open.

"Rosalie, stop!" Missouri cried, arm stretched toward the girl, and okay, Dean officially had no idea what was going on.

He leapt to his feet anyway, poised and ready for... whatever.

Rosalie turned to Sam. Time almost seemed to slow as she fixed him with her dazed stare, then sped up again as Sam jerked on the bed, once, then twice, and then he was in the throes of what Dean could only assume was a seizure.

"Sam!" He took a step forward.

"Stop," Rosalie said, and he did.

Just like that, his muscles locked and he froze. If he wasn't able to see Sam convulsing he might have completely forgotten why he'd wanted to move in the first place.

"Rosalie, honey," Missouri said, hands raised as she approached cautiously, tiny steps forward and no sudden movements, as if Rosalie was a wounded animal. "You need to stop this. You don't know what you're getting into."

"Stop," Rosalie said again, but apart from a slight pause as Missouri assessed herself, it had no effect.

"Just calm down now, there's no need-"

Dean felt the movement at his ankle before the blade he kept strapped there worked it's way out to hover in the air between the two women, and shit, _shit_, this was just like Max and Andy. Why the hell hadn't he considered them in all of this? Why had he assumed that Rosalie's head was too messed up to do anything other than accidentally suck people's souls out?

Sam was still seizing.

"You gotta listen to Missouri," Dean tried to order but he had the feeling that it came out more like pleading. "You don't know how big this is. Remember you said the yellow-eyed man scared you, now you're doing exactly what he wants."

"I'm doing what _I_ want," Rosalie said breathlessly. "For once. You don't, you don't get to try and stop me."

"What are you doing to Sam?" Dean demanded.

Rosalie let out a hysterical laugh. "To Sam! I told him, I told him. You don't want me to win. You just, just want him back. It's not my fault! I didn't ask for this, but I'm not, I won't..."

She flinched, bringing a hand up to her temple. The knife dipped slightly.

"Rosalie-"

"God, shut up! You're both talking at once! Just _shut up!_"

Dean found himself unwillingly speechless, eyes flicking from Rosalie to Sam. Jesus, how long could a seizure last? And what would it mean with it ended?

Rosalie composed herself with a deep shaky inhale through her nose.

"Okay, okay... I'm leaving now. Don't come after me." The knife waved Missouri to the side, away from the door. Missouri took a hesitant step.

Rosalie took a decisive one, but paused immediately, swinging around to face Dean again. "But you will." It wasn't a question. She cocked her head to the side in contemplation. "Sam knows you will."

She flinched again, harder this time, and dropped her head into her hands, clenching her fists tightly in her hair. She let out a pain-filled growl, eyes snapping back to Dean, and suddenly he could move again, could probably speak if he tried. He didn't waste time trying to figure out why but he had the sense that it was Sam's doing. It took all he had not to slump and give himself away before he figured out a plan.

"You can't come after me," Rosalie said, face clenched in a mix of misery and determination. "It's my life. I can do..." She faltered, blinking furiously, before she pulled herself together again. "Shut up!" she moaned, seemingly to herself. "I'm calling the shots."

She shook her head. "Sorry, Dean."

The knife shuddered violently as it twisted away from Missouri, turning to Dean. It pulled back as if trying to build up momentum and hung there for such a drawn out moment that Dean had time to wonder whether Rosalie maybe needed more practice at this, before it suddenly shot forward.

Dean threw himself to the side, hearing the whistle of the blade through the air as he landed awkwardly by the weapons duffel.

There was nothing awkward about the way he drew his gun though, just a graceful roll onto his back and the split-second he needed to aim, then his finger was squeezing the trigger.

**To Be Continued...**


	11. Chapter 11

**There's No Such Thing As Monsters**

**Chapter Eleven**

A million doubts crowded to the surface as soon as the bullet left the chamber. He wouldn't have hesitated to take out Mas if it weren't for Sam's reasoning. Should he be killing the demon's kids or saving them like Sam insisted? What if Rosalie used her mojo to stop the bullet? What if she didn't?

Sam was still in her head. What if taking her out took out Sam as well?

Damn it, the whole shoot first, questions later route was a bitch, but he couldn't take it back, no matter how much he suddenly, desperately wanted to.

The bullet found it's mark, rocking Rosalie back as it slammed into her chest. For an impossible few seconds, she managed to keep her feet under her and Dean watched the shock and horror fade from her eyes before she went down in a heap.

The knife thudded harmlessly to the floor beside him but he barely registered the neutralized threat as he scrambled to his feet. A constant stream of curse words, mingled with prayers aimed at anything that would listen, surged through Dean's head as he lurched towards Sam.

The seizure had halted abruptly with the gunshot. Sam seemed to wilt into the mattress, blankets half tossed off, hair a ruffled mess falling limply over his closed eyelids. So quiet. Dean didn't know if he should be screaming or thanking whatever that he wouldn't have to witness Sam's open eyes glazed over with death.

"Sammy." It came out as a half-strangled growl as he pawed at Sam's neck, dizzy with panic. His little brother's head rolled bonelessly at his ministrations.

Dean's hands were shaking and he swore his heart had stopped as he fumbled for Sam's pulse – please let there be a pulse – his whole body trapped between one moment and the next.

Finally, after far too long and what Dean suspected were now a series of near-fatal heart attacks, his fingers found the right place. He pressed hard, probably harder than necessary, and held his breath.

_There_. Erratic and stuttering, but there, thumping away.

Dean sagged, hands moving to Sam's chest, feeling for the rise and fall.

Missouri appeared suddenly on the other side of the bed, seemingly in a blink of the eye. Dean wondered vaguely, half-crazily, if that was part of her gift or whether he'd just been so focussed on Sam that he'd neglected noticing her approach.

She laid a hand gently on Sam's forehead and Dean bit back the urge to tell her to back off. Irrational, definitely, seeing as she was the only one who could tell him whether Sam was actually in his alive – thank whoever – body, but there all the same.

Missouri sent him an amused look, as if she knew what he was thinking – she probably did, of course, and okay, Dean liked the woman, of course he did, she helped them out and was grateful, sure, but he liked to keep his thoughts private, thank you very much. The whole mind-reading thing was creepy and kind of irritating, not to mention a total invasion of his human rights or something.

Missouri looked even more amused, which Dean figured was good in the grand scheme of things, because she was obviously checking Sam for something (his soul) and it couldn't be too bad if she could smile.

"He's in there, right?" Dean asked, just to make sure, because he wasn't exactly going to take Missouri's facial expression as confirmation.

"He's resting," Missouri said reassuringly, taking her hand away. "Boy's tired as anything. Now don't you go trying to wake him up, Dean Winchester. He needs his sleep."

Dean halted his hands progression towards Sam's shoulder.

Damn mind-readers.

XXX

Missouri had retired to her room by the time Sam returned to consciousness.

Despite Dean's earlier desire for Sam to _wake the hell up already_, he had decided, in retrospect, that he was glad Sam had slept through the disposal of Rosalie's body and Dean's attempt at cleaning the blood from the carpet. There was still a damp, rust-coloured stain that stubbornly refused to come out but it was better than nothing.

He spent the rest of his time pacing and channel-surfing, half-heartedly searching Sam's laptop for porn (until he got paranoid that Missouri might be tuned into the Dean Winchester channel), and obsessively checking that Sam was still breathing. Screw Missouri's assurances, he had to make sure.

So, for all his hovering and, uh, mother-henning as Sam would put it, it just figured that Dean would be in the bathroom when the kid decided to surface. Sam had always been difficult like that.

He was blinking hazily at the ceiling when Dean emerged, prompting a small startled flinch from Dean. It had been starting to look as though Sam was going to sleep right through the night (again). Kid had come pretty close. There was only the barest hint of light visible though the mandatory gap in the motel curtains.

Sam's head rolled on the pillow to look up at Dean.

"I'm me, right?" he asked wearily, before Dean could say anything. He lifted his hands up to look at them briefly before letting them drop down as if holding them up was too much effort. "I'm not...?"

Dean felt himself break out in a relieved smile. "Yeah, you're you. Stupid hair and all." He sat down on the edge of his bed, elbows on his knees, revelling in the sight of his brother, finally awake.

The teasing slipped past Sam as he closed his eyes and breathed out a sigh of relief. He looked back up at Dean. "Thank God."

Dean quirked an eyebrow. Time for the whole 'what, me? Worried? As if' routine. "I don't know, Sammy, you were rocking the whole chick thing for a while there."

Straight away, Dean knew he's said the wrong thing (damn him and his habit of using humour to avoid emotions), brought the conversation too close to the crazy girl too soon. Shit. Maybe he should concentrate more on not being an idiot rather than trying to convince the kid that he had everything under control.

Sam pushed himself up on his elbows to look around the room. "Where's Rosalie?" he asked (of course, stupid Dean, stupid.) "And... was Missouri here?"

Dean tackled the easy one first. "Missouri's in a room a few doors down. Probably still sleeping. It was the craziest thing, man, she just turned up out of no where. I didn't call her or anything. She just_ knew._"

But Sam wouldn't let himself be distracted. "Is Rosalie with here?" he asked slowly. Yeah, kid wasn't fooled by his stalling at all. Dean saw Sam's eyes flick over the rusty stain on the carpet.

Dean looked away, bringing a hand up to rub at the back of his neck awkwardly. "Sam..."

Sam's jaw clenched for a moment, sucking in a breath through his teeth before letting it out shakily. For a second, Dean thought Sam was about to cry, which was kind of horrifying because as much as Dean teased him about that sort of thing Dad had drilled it into both of them that teats were only meant for broken bones and stitches, but Sam just kind of deflated.

"What happened?" he asked finally. He wasn't looking at Dean now, damn it, was there any way Dean could have screwed this up more?

Dean was gripped by the sudden urge to move. He pushed off against his knees and took a few steps away before he realized that it really wasn't cool to walk away from Sam when the kid couldn't follow. It was also kind of risky 'cause the kid could be stubborn and try to follow anyway.

"Look, Sammy, you're still... sick or whatever. You just woke up. I'll explain everything later." It was a cop out that he knew Sam would recognize but maybe, hopefully, his kid brother wouldn't push.

"Dean."

Yeah, right.

"Tell me what happened, I – whoa..."

Dean turned in time to see Sam slump back on the bed. Idiot must've tried to get up, of course.

"Sammy?" He took a few steps closer.

"'m 'kay," Sam muttered, but he'd turned a lighter shade of pale (almost grey) and didn't look like he was going to try moving again any time soon.

"Okay as in you feel like you haven't eaten for nearly a week?" Dean hazarded. "Let me tell you, protein shakes and comatose little brothers are a messy mix."

Sam crinkled his nose, reaching up a shaky hand to inspect his unwashed hair. "I wanna shower."

Dean snorted. "The only way you're getting in the shower is if I'm in there holding you up."

He snorted again at the horrified look on Sam's face. "Yeah, thought so. Just wait and I'll fix you some soup, okay? You can do the shower thing later."

"Don' want soup," Sam muttered around a yawn, but he stayed put, grimacing slightly as he shifted slowly, seemingly checking that everything was still in working order.

Dean grinned as he got to work heating up one of the cans of soup they kept around for situations like this. He faltered. Maybe not exactly like this, but there'd been plenty of times when injury led to a queasy stomach or they hadn't had the chance to hustle pool and couldn't afford to go to a diner.

Sam was blessedly silent behind him. Dean wondered if maybe he'd fallen asleep but didn't dare check. It might be a trap, Sam had always been sneaky like that. Waiting until Dean let his guard down, finding just the right moment or just the right words to somehow manage to twist Dean around his little finger and get exactly what he wanted, every damn time.

"It was like I was her," Sam murmured, suddenly and vaguely miserable, and shit, of course Sammy wanted a chick flick moment. "At first, at least. After a while I kind of got shoved off a bit, but at first... I didn't even realize that we were separate people."

Damn it, Sam. Dean took the mug of soup from the ancient microwave after it finished with a shrill beep and grudgingly brought it over to Sam. Sam grasped it absently, scratching a fingernail lightly over the red and white design.

"She was one of the demon's kids." Sam looked up at him, almost as if for confirmation. "She said, or thought, I dunno... there was a yellow eyed man in her dreams."

Dean rubbed at the back of his neck, a nervous habit that one day he was going to work on avoiding. "Yeah, she was. I looked into it. Her parents were killed in a fire when she was six months old."

Sam's knuckles were starting to turn white around the cup. "So let me guess," he said, the attempt to sound casual overshadowed by far more intense emotions, anger, fear, maybe even grief. "She turned dark side and you had to take her out."

It's not even a question. "Sam, that doesn't mean that you-"

"Don't tell me that," Sam cut in, eyes fixed on the slowly forming skin on the top of his soup. The emotions faded now, leaving only a tired resignation. "Just... don't, okay?"

Son of a bitch. Fine then, if Sam wanted a chick flick moment, then Dean was going to chick flick the shit out of this moment. He leant forward and locked Sam in with his most serious gaze – which was kind of pointless really because Sam still wasn't looking at him, but whatever, it would come through in his voice, right?

"Sam... Sammy, Rosalie had no one. I looked into her, remember? She was living on the streets before they committed her. Her parents were dead and the rest of her family turned their backs on her apparently. Plus, you know, she wasn't exactly of sound mind. You're not like her, or like Max or Andy's evil twin. They had nothing to stop them."

"Yeah, and what's going to stop me?" Sam asked bitterly, "And don't say you will. It's a _demon_, Dean. Dad couldn't stop it and he'd been tracking it for 23 years. He said-"

"Damn it, Sam, I know what Dad said!" Dean couldn't help the rise of his voice or stop his fists from clenching, but _seriously_, Sam? You lie around in a coma for a while and come back just to tell Dean that he's a terrible big brother and there's no point in trying to help you? "And I don't give a shit. You think I can't save you? Fucking _watch me!_"

Sam flinched back, mouth opening slightly in surprise and stared at him until Dean cleared his throat awkwardly and tried to think of some way to break the silence.

"Okay," Sam said finally, before Dean could come up with anything, so quietly that he did a double take, unsure if he'd heard correctly.

"What?"

Sam glanced away, then seemed to make an effort to look back up. "Okay," he said again, not quite meeting Dean's eyes. "Save me. Please."

It was Dean's turn to be stunned into silence. It took a moment and a few rough swallows before he could speak without sounding like someone was strangling him.

"You got it, kid."

**The End**


End file.
